Breaking the Cycle
by Hieronym
Summary: Her life a mess of subterfuge and lies, Yoshino wishes fervently that the future will never arrive. The future, however, is already here.
1. Paradise Lost

Author's note: So I wrote myself into a bit of a corner regarding Yoshino and Uchida. Essentially, I am forced to talk about certain things more or less point-blank. The extremely obvious innuendo stops after the third scene, I swear…

Update: 8/13/2011: So I completely flubbed Yoshino's age. She should be fifteen… It doesn't affect much.

* * *

"_Are you sure about this?" Uchida asked, looking at the bottle in her hand skeptically. Her hair, down for the night, still wet from the shower, tangled itself behind her back as she half-sat, half-knelt on Yoshino's bed._

"_Come on!" Yoshino insisted. "Haven't you ever been curious?" _

_Uchida's eyes narrowed._

"_We just have to not drink too much," Yoshino added. "As long as we're careful, we'll be fine."_

_Others, in Uchida's position, might have been shocked at such a radical departure from the "goodie two-shoes" demeanor Yoshino projected most of the time, especially at school._

_Uchida had, however, known Yoshino far too long to be shocked at something like this._

"_How did you even get your hands on any of this?" she asked probingly. "Obviously you can't just go into a store and buy it, and you'd have to sneak it past like twelve servants on the way here."_

_Yoshino looked into the corner of the room, an affected gesture of duplicity._

"_I have my ways," she said mysteriously._

_Uchida grunted with annoyance._

"_Oh, come off it," she said, leaning forward, expression serious. "Just tell me."_

_Yoshino turned her head back down, looking right back into those wide, cute eyes of hers._

"_Not until you agree to drink some," Yoshino said firmly._

_Uchida pursed her lips, like Yoshino knew she would._

"_Fine," Uchida said, peeved, giving in. "It wasn't like I wasn't going to. You're always so mean—so adamant about these things!"_

But you're so cute when you're mad_, Yoshino thought._

_She kept that particular thought to herself._

_Uchida swiped a cup off the sidetable, far more roughly than was necessary, extracting it from in between another cup and an extra bottle of sake. _

_Yoshino winced. That was exactly the kind of gesture liable to knock everything off the table, shatter the glass, and cause a scene. Sure, Uchida's clumsiness was one of her charm points, but Yoshino would rather it not come up just now._

_Fortunately, Uchida thrust the glass outward without incident, pointedly looking away from her, in a gesture of feigned uncaring._

"_Well, hurry up, let's get this over with," Uchida said._

_Yoshino pulled the cap off the bottle she was holding—a cap she had opened with a bottle opener just a little while earlier—and poured. She herself had no fear of spilling anything._

"_It wasn't really that hard," Yoshino commented, bringing the bottle upright and getting off the bed to walk over to the table._

"_The servants always hold a party, this time of year," she continued, pouring herself a cup. "Two actually; Christmas and New Years. Long tradition—I'm surprised you don't already know."_

"_Stop stalling!" Uchida demanded, glaring at her._

"_I'm not stalling," Yoshino said, setting the bottle down. "That's pretty much it. I swiped one when they weren't looking and hid it in my bag. Played the violin a little to distract them. Took two trips. Easy."_

"_Well, of course, if you do it like that," Uchida said, annoyed by how easy it had been. _

_Yoshino sat down, picked up her own cup, and made an exaggerated facial expression._

"_Cheers, then?" she asked, raising her eyebrows._

_Uchida stifled a laugh, successfully turning it into a mere puff of air._

"_And my parents think you're the epitome of a good girl," Uchida commented. "If only they knew."_

_She made sure to add extra sarcastic emphasis to "epitome"._

_Uchida started the raise the glass, but stopped halfway._

"_Speaking of which…" Uchida added, gesturing at the doorway with her eyes._

"_There's no risk," Yoshino reassured. "She's started drinking a little at these events, the past couple of years, so she'll be sound asleep. She probably won't even notice if we stay up. Probably."_

_Uchida narrowed her eyes again._

_Yoshino shrugged dismissively._

"_So it's a little bit of a risk. Could be worse. Come on."_

_They struck glasses, and drank, carefully at first._

A short while later, Yoshino opened her eyes, exhaling slightly.

She watched the ceiling for a moment.

This particular dream always gave her mixed feelings. It wasn't that it was a bad dream; it was that just that it inspired certain feelings of guilt, since it was based on past events.

Suffice to say, the New Year's festival the day after had been rather awkward.

Still, though, a bit of hurried cleaning up had prevented any prying maids from seeing anything untoward. Just as importantly, she had managed, with time, to convince an amnesia-plagued Uchida to dismiss the whole incident as surely a misunderstanding. She had never before been so thankful for alcohol's ability to suppress memory. All-in-all, it was as if nothing had ever happened.

Except that she herself remembered everything, and therein lay the rub.

After the initial shock of discovery, she had found herself afflicted by the memories, unable to stop thinking about it, dreaming about it at night, barely able to sleep whenever they shared the same bed. It staggered her, that something like that would be not only something she wanted, but also something she couldn't deny herself.

In the end, she couldn't take it.

She knew it could never have happened if they hadn't wanted it to. That was a key point, a monumental fact, one she tried to draw on for the strength to speak, to confront the lie she had given earlier.

Three months later, in the middle of their marathon study session, she gave it her first and only shot.

She had directed the topic carefully to her desired destination, starting with one of Uchida's favorite topics: puerile gossip about boys. She was quite sure Uchida had no intention of acting on any of their observations of cuteness, nor really thought about the topic in any particularly deep manner. It was just something she probably felt was an expected topic of conversation, something to talk about—and she definitely enjoyed talking. So did Yoshino, for that matter.

Then Yoshino had channeled the conversation, ever so subtly, toward Touma. Surely, she asserted, Uchida had detected a certain strangeness in the girl's behavior…

To her surprise, Uchida caught the hint more or less immediately. Yes, it was obvious, Uchida agreed, but she wondered if either of the two involved had any idea; Uchida didn't think so, and Yoshino was inclined to agree.

They discoursed on this topic a while longer, and then Yoshino followed through with another slight diversion of topic:

"_So what do you think about…things like that?"_ _She asked. "You know…with girls? What if Touma really…did something?"_

_Uchida thought only briefly._

"_I wouldn't stop being her friend or anything like that, if that's what you're wondering,"_ _Uchida said, then stopped to think a bit more._

"_Though," Uchida continued, hesitantly. "I almost think it would be better if she never noticed. If they never noticed. If she did, she'd go right for it—you know how she is. But…it'd be hard. You know what I'm saying. What about you?"_

"_I think more or less the same way," Yoshino said, which was true. "I just think it's interesting that…"_

_She stopped there, and Uchida watched her, and she would have given anything to make those eyes stop boring into her soul._

"_Well, I mean," she tried again. "What if…"_

_She looked up, at that innocent, unsuspecting face, watching her curiously, clueless about what she was trying to suggest._

I can't do it_, she thought. _I can't. Not to her. Not to Yuka.

I can't ruin it.

"_No, nothing," she amended hastily. "Just a silly thought. Nothing important."_

But though she had dropped the topic, she had been so desperate, and depressed, and despairing, and lonely, that the contradiction between her feelings and actions was unbearable. It hurt so much, being so close…

In her despondence, she had committed the sin, reaching again for the sake.

An accident was one thing. To perform the same feat again, deliberately, hiding the evidence, making absolutely sure Uchida would forget…

She had woken up that morning, again remembering every detail, remembering the pangs of guilt that had accompanied every action she had taken, feeling like the worst kind of scum. She almost confessed then and there, but found in the end that the guilt wasn't quite strong enough for that. Instead, she suffered in silence, Uchida watching her with those amnesiac eyes, wondering why she looked so distressed that morning.

In the end, the guilt lasted six months, and then she had—

_No. No more of this. I'll drive myself crazy if I think it over every damn time._

Closing her eyes, she rested her head on the pillow, listening to the quiet, measured breathing next to her.

Seven times in three years. She kept an exact count.

Three years of fearing discovery, constantly fearing that some tic, some overlooked piece of clothing, would give her away. Three years on the rack, cursed by her memory, unwilling to forget, unwilling to stop, unwilling to break Uchida's innocence by telling the truth. Three years, and she still couldn't bring herself to confess the sin, even after others had already led the way. Not Yuka. Not her.

She wished she had never come up with that stupid idea with the alcohol. Then nothing would have ever happened, and they could have lived on, the best of friends, and nothing else. She would never have had to discover what others had surely already noticed, that all their fights, all their banter—it all resonated with something far deeper.

That, in the end, was the only possible justification. The fact was, they both wanted it—and this she had extensive experimental evidence of.

She smiled painfully. Yesterday night had been another close call, but in the end she had managed to refrain, thankfully enough. The last thing she needed was for both of them to be hung-over at her own fifteenth birthday party.

Which was today, and she should already be up.

She opened her eyes again, blinking to clear them of their bleariness. She didn't need the clock to know what time it was.

Yoshino turned her head to look at Uchida's face, blissful with sleep, framed by long hair that extended around her head and neck, and downward, winding and tangling around the curves of her nightgown. Rather recent curves, as she well knew, but still quite substantial.

As she watched, Uchida shifted and muttered something unintelligible, obeying the dictates of her dreams.

She sighed, thinking once more of the future.

_Well, whatever._

Yoshino reached over and grabbed her by the shoulder.

"Time to get up, Yuka."

* * *

"Good morning, mistress," Nakanawa greeted, passing her in the hallway, carrying in her capable hands what appeared to be, of all things, a heavy box full of lightbulbs.

"Good morn—" Yoshino began automatically, before nearly doing a full double-take.

"Nakanawa," she addressed, a moment later, causing the maid to stop and turn her head slightly.

"Yes, mistress?" the maid asking, looking at her, the slightest of amusement lines showing on the edge of the eye that faced her.

"Who put you up to this?" Yoshino demanded, skipping right to the point.

"Up to what?" Nakanawa asked innocently.

Yoshino made what she thought was a fiercer expression, aware that the pajamas she was wearing took at least some of the fire out of it.

"Right, then," she said imperiously, not trying to argue the faked innocence. "Well, Nakanawa-_san_, if you happen to see Arisawa, tell him I _will_ get him for this."

"Oh, I'm sure he's shaking in his boots, mistress," the maid responded, humor leaking into her tone at the repeated use of the offending word.

"Then I wonder how he fancies a drive down yonder congested freeway," Yoshino mused openly. "I'm feeling a fancy for cupcakes."

"Already have them, mistress," the maid said, placing the box carefully on the floor and turning to face her. "Special delivery, yesterday. In the kitchen."

_Damn_, Yoshino thought, watching Nakanawa's amused expression.

"Will there be anything else?" the maid asked, with seemingly unimpeachable courtesy.

"And I suppose the pudding has arrived too," Yoshino said drily.

"Most definitely," the maid responded, bowing slightly.

She paused, though, before adding:

"You should really give the kitchen staff a chance, though. The cook swears up and down he's got the recipe down this time. It must be demoralizing for him, being unable to satisfy all your food needs."

"I will believe that when I taste it," Yoshino said, ignoring her hint as to the chef's feelings. Defeat rankled.

"Carry on then," she added, waving her hand in a dismissive gesture. "I'll get my vengeance some other way."

She started to turn away, but Nakanawa had more to say.

"While I'm here," the maid said, bending over to pick the box back up. "Will Uchida-san be needing anything this fine morning?"

She was being quite courteous, referring to the current time as "morning".

Yoshino shook her head.

"You know how it is," she instructed. "If you have some extra time, make sure to 'check up' on the room, and be 'dismayed' if it turns out she is asleep again when you make your unnecessarily loud way in."

She made quotation mark gestures with one hand, even though it wasn't really necessary.

"Will do, Yo-chan," the maid said, returning briefly to her traditional nickname for Yoshino, the one she tolerated only because the woman had been using it for nearly as long as Yoshino had been alive.

The lightbulbs clattered against each other as she made her way off.

Yoshino suppressed a grimace and continued on her own way.

_I think I preferred 'ojou-sama' to that particular nickname_, she thought.

She paused to consider that.

_No, on second thought, I really don't. And if she's doing it, so are all the others…_

She stopped in the middle of the hallway, and then made a decision, turning on her heels almost as precisely as a parade-ground soldier.

_You know what? I don't need to see the preparations yet. I can take my shower first. I do not want to deal with this, not this early in the, er, afternoon._

She didn't typically take showers after getting up, but it seemed like a good idea for today, since she might be too busy later to have the time. She could honestly say she had planned that out yesterday night; it was not just an excuse.

She ran into her de-facto mother on the threshold of her doorway, clearly preparing to knock loudly and yell something about what time it was.

"Oh, so you're up," the woman said, looking at her with mild surprise.

Yoshino regarded her. Medium-length hair tied back in a sensible ponytail, eyes firm and bright, with features reasonably attractive, as yet mostly untouched by age. Twenty-nine this year, though Yoshino knew better than to dare mention that to anyone.

Nineteen years old, she must have been, when Yoshino first met her. That was simple math, and Yoshino wondered what could have motivated a girl like that to give up her youth for something like this. Financial considerations, she knew, were part of it.

Whatever the reasons, she was glad she had.

The woman in question peered critically at Yoshino's hair.

"Don't tell me—" she began.

"No, I don't intend to go the day like this," Yoshino said, anticipating the thought. "I'm on my way to wash my hair right now. I mean, I'm still in my nightdress. Obviously I'm not ready yet."

"Okay," the woman said, nodding with satisfaction. "And Yuka-chan, is she—"

"Yes, she's up," Yoshino said. "Or she will be when I'm through with her."

"I'm up already! Geez!"

Uchida stuck her head out through the gap between the two doors, aggravated and bleary, her hair the very definition of frazzled morning hair.

She blanched slightly when the two of them pinned her with identical glares.

"Fine, I'll go change," she said, sheepily withdrawing back behind the door.

Yoshino nodded at her mother and followed Uchida in.

"I swear the two of you are secretly related," Uchida commented as she walked by.

"Mhm," Yoshino said, turning her head to look at Uchida unbuttoning her shirt. "Whatever you say."

She watched for just a moment longer than necessary, then swung open the bathroom door and stepped in.

"I'll be in the shower if you need me," she announced off-hand.

"'kay," Uchida said, just as casually.

* * *

She stared up into the showerhead, heedless of the water impinging on her eyes.

After a long internal debate, she held up her hand and stared at it briefly.

_Well, let's make it quick,_ she thought.

* * *

When she got out of the shower, a light breakfast of toast, jam, and tea waited for her by the door.

She changed into her outfit for the day, something a little dressy, but nothing formal, then munched on the toast while she waited for Uchida to finish brushing her teeth. Afterwards, she helped Uchida to brush her unruly hair, musing on the virtues of shorter, lower-maintenance hair. She spared Uchida that argument today, however.

Besides, she admitted, longer hair was more fun—some of the time, at least.

As she sat there, watching Uchida drink the last of her tea, she reflected that if it weren't for Uchida, she would never have appreciated any of it. More accurately, she would never have _noticed_ any of it.

Food waiting for her at the door, beds readymade for her every night, a chauffeur at her beck and call, being able to buy whatever trinket caught her fancy—all of it would have been completely invisible, as natural as breathing.

Well, perhaps that wasn't entirely true. When she had been younger, her mother had made a studious effort to inculcate in her all the proletarian virtues: making her own bed, getting up early, washing the occasional set of dishes, cleaning her own room.

As she had long suspected, however, the intention had been strictly to teach her a lesson, not in the serious expectation that she would do any of that in the future. As she had gotten older, and her mother had become satisfied that she had internalized the point, such tasks had fallen by the wayside, one by one. It wasn't as if she were really too lazy to do it, after all.

Still…

She eyed her discarded night clothes, hung haphazardly on a towel rack in the bathroom, with unease.

Abandoning Uchida's hair for the moment, she got up, walked over, and collected her pajamas off the rack. She then walked back and tossed them on the small table by the door intended for laundry. Finally, she walked over to crawl back onto her bed.

Having a big room had certain disadvantages.

When she returned, Uchida raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Why not?" Yoshino asked dismissively, shrugging.

For all that some might think of Uchida as childish, she had always maintained a certain baseline when it came to exploiting Yoshino's hospitality. For instance, she wouldn't have sat around eating toast in bed if Yoshino weren't personally there to set the example.

Well, at least not now that she was older.

"What are you thinking about, all quiet like that?" Uchida asked, turning her head slightly, restrained by her own hair, held firmly in Yoshino's grasp.

"I'm just thinking about how lazy I would have become, without you," she responded, more or less truthfully.

Uchida thought about that.

"You're not lazy," Uchida reassured.

"Exactly," she explained.

Again, Uchida couldn't turn her head to face her, but she could sense the curious look she would have received otherwise.

She hadn't formulated it precisely when she said it, of course. It wasn't that Uchida had stopped her from being lazy—that was her mother, probably. It wasn't even that she had taught her that most children lived differently from her; she had always understood that, intellectually.

It was that, without Uchida, she would never have internalized the main point: that she was privileged, and that every time, as a child, she had lamented how different she was from the rest of them, she was making a mockery of them. It was selfish, to have so much, and still expect to be accepted so easily.

Perhaps things would have been easier had she adapted to her first school, full of wealthy brats, ready-made peers for her, but she hadn't, and that, as they say, was history.

With a sharp tug, she finished Uchida's second pigtail.

Uchida exclaimed painfully, then snapped her head around to glare at her.

"Sorry," she said, holding up her hands apologetically, realizing she had used far more force than was necessary.

"Geez," Uchida said, rubbing the back of her head. "It's just tying a knot."

"I was thinking about stuff," Yoshino explained.

Uchida gave her an inquiring look, but Yoshino didn't endeavor to explain herself.

"If we're done here," she said, getting up and gesturing with her thumb. "Let's go."

Uchida nodded.

* * *

On the way to the kitchen, she took extra care to stay out of the vision of anyone who might sneak up on her and call her "ojou-sama". Uchida sensed her nervousness, but said nothing. It could be anything, after all.

The customary kitchen staff of one chef and two assistants would, she knew, be augmented for the day by the groundskeeper and one of the maids, whose jobs were not very time-sensitive. They were not particularly good as helpers, but were at least competent enough to chop and wash things, which was good enough.

Nowadays, the chef was generally kind enough to humor Yoshino's newest self-improvement project: learning to cook. Flattered but clearly skeptical of the idea, the man shook his head disapprovingly and rattled off criticisms every time she made anything, hovering over her constantly.

Meanwhile, of course, her friends were pleased as punch at whatever she made. She didn't put much stock in that, however: what else are friends for?

Once, she had endeavored to ask one of the assistants for her opinion.

"It's not bad, really," the female assistant had said. "The old bastard nitpicks everything. He holds everyone to an impossible standard. I wouldn't be too worried."

That had heartened her, but then the assistant had continued:

"Though he's right about some things," she added. "You really aren't any good at judging saltiness. Just stick with the measuring spoons, and don't try to season by taste; that's probably the best idea."

That had stung.

Regardless, however, Yoshino would not be helping today. The chef unconditionally refused to let her do a thing on any special occasion, a category in which he included New Year's, Christmas, Tanabata, any of the days of Golden Week, several holidays she had never even heard of, anyone except Uchida visiting, and, of course, Yoshino's birthday. Pressed for a reason, the overweight man would always sigh and intone in that slight foreign accent of his:

"A truly busy kitchen is not a suitable place for a young girl such as yourself. Perhaps someday."

Personally, she was sure it had more to do with his pride as household chef, or something like that.

This would just be a visit, then, which she knew pleased Uchida, who didn't have very much fun standing around watching her. Uchida herself the cook had banned from helping after that incident with the noodles.

When she opened the door, the female assistant, busy decorating a set of cookies, looked her straight in the face, grimaced, and said sharply:

"Sir, _she_'s here!"

—with just a slight note of panic.

The chef looked up from taste-testing a pot full of cloudy liquid, and made an appalled expression.

"You two!" he bellowed across the room, not at Yoshino and Uchida, but at someone in the unseen corner of the room.

"I told you to hide that thing an hour ago! Why is it not already done?" he barked. "Do it now!"

"But sir," the groundskeeper's voice returned tremulously. "You said the rice rolls had to be cut, and then you said to wash—"

"No excuses!" he overrode with the autocratic authority of a head chef. "Get it out of here now!"

Of course, the man never talked to Yoshino like _that_. She felt sorry for the poor groundskeeper.

Naturally wanting to see what was going on, Uchida leaned forward to try and look in the corner.

Yoshino, responding instantly, covered Uchida's eyes and dragged her bodily out of the room.

"Don't look," she whispered loudly. "It's rude."

"What—" Uchida began, grabbing at Yoshino's arm with her hand.

"It's the cake," Yoshino said, the door closing behind her. "It has to be. You know how he is about that thing. It has to be a secret from the rest of us, and so forth. We'll just wait."

"Oh, right. That thing," Uchida said, ceasing her struggles to escape. "Of course. Can you let go of my eyes now?"

She did so, and they waited a reasonable amount of time before opening the door again.

"Mistress, what brings you here?" the chef asked, now standing in the doorway, barring passage. As might be expected, the vowels in "ojou-sama" sounded a little strange.

"_Ojou-sama_?" Uchida repeated incredulously.

Yoshino winced with deliberate conspicuity.

"Not you too?" she asked pleadingly.

The man grinned toothily.

"Ah, we agreed upon it, behind the Boss's back. You see, you're bringing all your little friends here. We're going to make a show of it."

The "boss" referred not to her, but instead to her mother.

Yoshino took a moment to sharply elbow Uchida, who had started quietly guffawing to herself about the concept of Yoshino being called "ojou-sama", before looking up again.

"Anyway, why are you here?" he asked. "I made it clear—"

"We are just here to observe briefly," she interrupted.

"But—" he persevered.

"Just for a few minutes, okay?" she insisted. "We won't touch a thing."

The chef looked at them suspiciously, but moved aside to let them through.

"In that corner," he ordered, pointing. "Where you won't be underfoot."

They shifted into position.

"Why _do_ you want to watch anyway?" Uchida asked, tugging at one of her pigtails.

"Hush," Yoshino said, peering intently at the kitchen staff walking around.

Uchida made a dissatisfied noise, but didn't argue.

Ten minutes later, one of the maids showed up at the door, carrying multiple bags full of foodstuffs. She was the one who shuttled groceries, ran errands, and did whatever required a car, but wasn't at Yoshino's direct request. She logged far more miles than Arisawa ever did.

It seemed as good a time as any. She said something encouraging to all of them, they mumbled various distracted acknowledgements, and the two of them left, exiting via a different door.

She chose not to use the door to the dining room, which she knew would be full of servants.

"I have to show some interest, after all," Yoshino explained, as they strode down the well-carpeted hallway. "I don't want them thinking I'm the kind of person to ask for a bigger party, and then just hang around in my room without caring about the preparations."

"But isn't that what you're supposed to do?" Uchida pointed out. "I mean, what are you doing anyway, walking around performing inspections and making them all nervous? It's not like you're contributing anything."

"I helped plan," Yoshino defended, glancing at her, eyes gliding over one of the paintings on the wall.

"Besides," she added, looking forward again. "I _am_ curious. It's my own birthday party. I want to make sure everything is like I wanted. It'd probably be strange _not_ to micromanage everything—not that I am, mind you."

She paused.

"And it'd be a little awkward if I just stayed away for the whole day, since that's not what I normally do. I thought I'd get them off-guard by showing up in my nightclothes, since I do that sometimes, but I changed my mind. I was trying to be a little different."

It was a convoluted explanation, and she knew it. Uchida looked at her skeptically, but dropped the topic, much to her relief.

"I can't believe you chose those ugly decorations," Uchida pouted, smoothly changing subjects. "The ones I suggested were much better!"

She gestured with her hands to make it clear what she meant.

"Your taste is atrocious," Yoshino responded, point-blank, not even looking where she was pointing. "Despite what you seem to think, I can't have pink little girl stuff forever."

It was by that point an old quarrel for the two of them.

Uchida harrumphed, insulted, and looked around at her surroundings one more time.

The decorations had begun slowly morphing away from their previous forms, to suit Yoshino's treasonous new ideas. The rate of decay had increased, she noted. It depressed Uchida just looking at it.

Then, suddenly, they were in the main room, a butler opening the door in front of her.

Yoshino kept her face blank in the face of a barrage of "ojou-sama"s, elbowed Uchida for good measure, then walked onward, dispensing various platitudes to those she met on the way.

She stopped in front of one of the maids, having spotted her setting up balloons in the wrong room—something worth correcting.

"Balloons in the dining room," she said, once she had her attention.

"Really, mistress?" the maid asked, pursing her lips, despite everything not forgetting the newfound honorific. "But I was instructed—"

"Probably a mistake," Yoshino said, suppressing a twinge of annoyance at her complicity in the conspiracy.

She tilted her head upwards to look at the taller woman.

"If you don't mind—" she began.

She stopped abruptly, spotting her target for the day through the wide window, strolling down one of the numerous paths that crisscrossed the grounds, unaware he had been spotted.

"Actually," she requested, switching gears. "Do you mind getting our jackets first?"

She rapidly sought the nearest door leading out, jammed her feet into the proffered boots, and emerged out onto the snow-covered grounds. Navigating with deliberate speed, she advanced along the carefully-cleared path, up to the gazebo groaning under the weight of snow, then turned right to walk under the two rows of bare-limbed trees. She stalked her prey, tugging Uchida along the whole way, heedless of the puffs of condensation that emanated from her face and the icy wind that bit at her cheeks.

Eventually, Uchida deducing the goal of the expedition and stopped noisily questioning Yoshino, adapting her fast walk to be as stealthy as possible on the stone path.

Thus, the surprise was total.

"And what do you think you're doing, trotting around out here instead of being helpful inside?" Yoshino demanded, when they were within only a few feet.

Arisawa stopped, his back stiffening.

He turned around, slowly.

"Ah, young mistress," he said, voice muffled, his moustache and scarf combining to hide a good part of his expression, bowing formally.

He pulled his scarf aside so he could speak clearly.

"Uchida-san," he said, voice clear, bowing to Uchida in turn.

"I was just taking a short walk to prepare for my drive ahead," he explained. "But if you would prefer I go back inside…"

Yoshino crossed her arms, a maneuver which never failed to remind her that there was a lot more on her chest nowadays—though not as much as she wished. Damn that Uchida.

"Don't be disingenuous," she said. "I am well aware you're avoiding me. What's all this 'mistress' business about? You and I both know you are the only person who would ever think to set up something like this."

Arisawa pulled at his moustache, an expression of slight chagrin making it onto his impressively impassive face.

"I thought it would be useful in making an impression on your friends," he said. "Now that we have a chance to prepare. So that they remember certain things."

"And this spectacle wouldn't?" Yoshino asked incredulously, gesturing with her arm at the giant mansion behind her, almost hitting Uchida square in the face; Uchida dodged, exclaiming.

"Sometimes it is the little things that matter," he commented.

She kept her eyes on him.

"The others agreed with me, after all," he defended. "I could hardly do something like this unilaterally."

"Look, I am aware you do not approve of them," she said, leaning forward, glaring at him. "But was this bit of theater really necessary?"

"Perhaps not," he said, tugging again at his moustache. "But is it really such an important matter? It is only a change of habits for one day, and makes this household a bit less anomalous. Think of the deleterious effects on morale, were you to order a reversal."

"It makes a mockery of my authority," Yoshino said harshly, twisting her lip.

Arisawa blinked at her, genuinely shocked.

"—or that's what I would say," she finished, relaxing her false expression. "If I were 'less anomalous'."

She uncrossed her arms.

"Very well," she conceded, "you win this round. But I _will_ enact my revenge, mark my words."

Arisawa recovered from his discomfit, smiling slightly, moustache shifting.

"Indeed," he said. "I wouldn't expect any less."

Uchida rolled her eyes dramatically.

"Anyway," Yoshino said. "On to other things. You have the route and plan clearly understood?"

Now that the exciting part was over, she felt the chill air stinging her neck and face. She hadn't had time to add the customary earmuffs, scarf, or gloves to her outfit. At her side, Uchida was already shivering slightly.

"Of course," he said. "We have been over this. It is my job."

"Humor me," Yoshino said. "Describe it to me one more time."

Arisawa frowned slightly.

"I do not mean to be forward," he said, "but it is not really necessary for you to involve yourself in all these details so often. It is our profession, after all, to spare you from having to worry about it."

She narrowed her eyes, made a displeased noise, and crossed her arms again.

"Alright, alright," he said, making a concessionary hand gesture.

He cleared his throat.

"At the agreed-upon time of three thirty, I will depart from here on the route I have well-memorized, but stored on the GPS just for safety. Just before I reach each of the locations, I will find a place to stop and phone ahead, to ensure that they are ready. If and when they are, I will drive to the most evident and convenient possible location to receive them. As for the persons involved, I am receiving, in this exact order, the girl with the family problems, the boy with the clothing issues, the non-male paramour of the first girl, and another boy with…with no distinguishing features I know about. Yet. In addition, I am told the parents of Uchida-san here"—a slight bow—"have been asked to attend, but that they will find their own way to the front gate just before five, at which time they will be allowed to park their vehicle in the carport. I believe that covers everything?"

He said all this in one rapid and continuous pronouncement, leaving no openings for comment.

Yoshino made a sour face.

Well, at least he didn't know _everything_.

"Yes. Yes it does," she said. "But as you well know, a good portion of those details are not of the sort that should be spoken in public."

"But this is hardly public," he pointed out, indicating their isolated location. "And it helps me remember."

"Don't push it," Yoshino warned, glaring. "I'll have you know, this increases the severity of my eventual revenge."

She rubbed her hands against each other.

"In any case," she said, huddling herself slightly. "Now that we are done with this, you may as well go inside and be warm. I believe they need assistance in the dining room."

"Very well," Arisawa said, bowing one final time, and walked past them toward the house.

They turned to watch him.

"You have to admit, though," Uchida said. "Was it really necessary to make him repeat all of that? It's pretty obvious stuff."

"I have to keep him on his toes," Yoshino explained, already moving, eager to get back in the warmth of the heater.

"Until I think of some way to get back at him, anyway," she finished.

A jolting impact struck the back of her head, sending her stumbling forward.

A second later, her mind caught up with the situation. A large, cold and wet mass had struck her on her occipital bone, sending her head forward, and almost causing her to lose her balance entirely. Her hair was soaked in the back, and shards of ice had flown downward onto her neck, immediately melting into freezing water. The only conclusion was…

She processed all this in the time it took her to regain her balance and spin around to look at the apparent source, ears still ringing.

Uchida held her hands behind her back, standing in a casual pose, eyes focused on an arbitrary tree branch to her left—the very picture of feigned innocence, suffering only from the critical flaw that there was no one else within at least fifty meters.

"You bas—" she began.

Uchida abruptly dropped her innocent expression, adopting a manic grin instead. Acting on instinct, Yoshino dodged rightward, turning her dodge into a dive and roll in the snow when she spotted the flash of Uchida's arm rising.

The missile badly missed her, her assailant not expecting such a proactive reaction from her.

In the act of rolling, Yoshino had picked up far more snow on her person than she could have possibly received from the snowball, but it was the principle that counted.

Besides, she had used the momentum to scoop snow off the ground with one painfully cold, ungloved hand. Using long-dormant reflexes, she packed it with a smack into her other hand, recovered into a crouch, and hurled it nearly point-blank back, all in a series of fluid motions.

This struck Uchida square on the side of the head, staggering her.

Yoshino used co-opted fighting skills, reflexes borne of a necessity she rather disliked remembering. It was something she had preserved all the years since then, honed by year after year of snowball fights.

Similarly, Uchida was no slouch either, taking only a moment to clear her head before dodging behind a tree trunk, escaping a second such projectile.

And so it went.

* * *

"What are you two, six?" Yoshino's mother-of-sorts asked rhetorically, bandaging Yoshino's scraped right knee. "What if one of you caught a cold? Some party that'd be! You could have at least come back and gotten some proper protection first!"

"We'll be fine," Yoshino insisted, inspecting her damaged palms. "It wasn't that cold. Really."

It was a lie, but one that was necessary. Besides, they should be fine—

Uchida sneezed loudly.

"You see?" her mother pointed out. "Do we really have to go through this routine every year?"

Yoshino glared at Uchida accusingly. Uchida looked back apologetically, sniffling slightly.

* * *

Uchida turned out to be fine, though she gave the two of them quite a scare.

Arisawa arrived back fifteen minutes before five, exactly on time. She and Uchida, plus her mother, met the other four at the door to the carport, where they were hastily shedding their varied winter coats and boots, looking a bit nonplussed at the servants appearing to whisk everything away. Arisawa tipped his cap and disappeared into the hallway.

Yoshino took a moment to regard the four of them, seated among bags that looked like gifts.

Makoto, thin and barely taller than Uchida, not as nervous-looking as he used to be, still carried that aura that gave people to urge to call him "baka". Nothing about him today gave away the possibility of an alternate persona, though, as always nowadays, he kept his hair a bit longer than might be normal.

Touma, tall and impressive, finally seemed to have found a limit to bodily growth—for now, anyway—and was struggling to get her left boot off, grimacing. Abandoning a brief flirtation with something longer, her hair was now a shorter mirror of Yoshino's own, the bangs hanging in front of her eyes. From this angle, Yoshino could see the necklace she had taken to wearing a few years back.

Chiaki, crouching, helped to tug at the aforementioned boot. Her hair was as luxurious as always, in her current posture nearly reaching the floor. Her face wore the same half-cynical, half-sleepy expression as always. Exactly as tall as Yoshino, she had somehow missed out on the family genes when it came to chest size, a fact which she never let Touma forget. Secretly, Yoshino was appreciative; she didn't want to be isolated on the low end of the spectrum.

Finally, Shuuichi, indescribably plain, looked a bit awkward and out-of-place, like always—as well he might.

Initial greetings and formalities were warm, but immediately afterward, things settled into a long uncomfortable silence, the four new guests glancing at each other awkwardly. Something seemed to be up.

She opened her mouth to ask—

"Alright, let's just get this disaster over with right now," Touma said decisively, taking charge.

"Disaster?" Uchida asked.

Looking slightly upward, Yoshino saw her mother raising an eyebrow, then realized she herself had made the same gesture. It was probably where she had learned it.

"Show them what presents you got," Touma ordered.

Yoshino frowned.

"It's kind of early," Yoshino began. "I had things scheduled—"

"I got cupcakes from that store by the freeway," Chiaki said, holding up a bag with a box inside, sounding annoyed rather than pleased at her gift, eyes looking off at a distant corner of the room.

"I—I also got cupcakes," Makoto said nervously, eyes downcast, holding up his gift.

_I swear he's afraid of me_, she thought. _But that doesn't make any sense, does it?_

Shuuichi, in contrast, looked her more or less in the face. However, he didn't sound any less embarrassed, holding up his bag and saying:

"Yes, well, I, uh…also with the cupcakes."

His expression was classic.

Yoshino's mother converted a laugh into a cough.

Yoshino suppressed her own laugh, then elbowed Uchida in the side without even looking.

"I myself got Earl Grey tea," Touma said, isolating herself from the other three with her body language. "I told them we should have coordinated, but _no_, Chiaki said, it should be _spontaneous_—"

Chiaki, in turn, elbowed Touma sharply, causing her to double over slightly.

"No, it's totally fine," Yoshino reassured. "You didn't have to get me anything anyway."

"Yes, it's completely fine," her mother echoed. "After all, one can never have enough, uh, cupcakes."

"True that," Uchida agreed, nodding seriously, not realizing the statement had been intended as a joke.

Yoshino glanced around at the others.

"Well, then! Why don't we go in?" Yoshino said cheerily, ending the topic before it could drag on awkwardly.

In her haste, then, she forgot to shield herself from her imminent embarrassment, realizing her mistake only when they had already reached the main complex of rooms.

"_Ojou-sama_?" Touma asked, looking at Yoshino curiously, after hearing the term used a couple of times in row.

"Yes, well," Yoshino said, doing her best to suppress any indication of embarrassment on her face, not entirely with success. "It's just a bit of theater for today. Nothing you should take seriously."

It wasn't really an explanation, and she knew it.

"Sort of like, uh, _hime-chan_, you know?" she added jocularly. "It's—"

She stopped. She had regretted the analogy even before she said it, but her brain had protested far, far too late.

_Shit_, she swore privately, as she never did out loud.

At her side, Chiaki's eyes narrowed. The others shifted subtly away from the two of them.

"So that's how it is, huh?" Chiaki said, voice low and dangerous. "Every day, at school, it's _hime_ this, _hime-chan_ that, but I thought I could rely on you, of all people, to never call me that. You, of all people."

"I'm disappointed, you hear me?" Chiaki accused loudly, turning to glare at Yoshino, scornfully, right in the face. Chiaki stood on the balls of her feet to gain height, forcing Yoshino back a step.

"Hey, c'mon, let's—let's not get angry about something like this. Surely she didn't mean it," Makoto said nervously, grabbing Chiaki by the shoulder, trying to insert himself in between the two of them. Yoshino was impressed by his courage.

"I'm not angry," Chiaki said, voice carefully calm, retreating from her aggressive posture. "I'm disappointed."

"It was an analogy!" Yoshino defended, deploying a hastily improvised explanation. "I wasn't calling _you_ that! I was sympathizing with you. Think about it! With all these _ojou-sama_'s flying around, I totally understand how you feel. It's not like it was my idea!"

"Oh," Chiaki said, tilting her head, pausing.

"Well that makes sense," Chiaki said, a bit flummoxed. "Sorry for doubting you."

Shaking her head to show no harm done, Yoshino shooed them into the dining room and thus into the main rooms. Uchida fell behind the rest of them, dropping her speed near the long table. Yoshino slowed down to see what the girl wanted.

"Think before you talk," Uchida said to her, sotto voce, face straight, concealing the pleasure Yoshino knew dwelled underneath. It was, of course, a version of her own exasperated, oft-expressed advice to Uchida.

"Shut up," she said.

* * *

Uchida's parents arrived shortly afterward, responding to an invitation by her mother, the three of them having developed a natural working relationship with regards to their respective daughters.

They had of course visited before, so they didn't spend as much time as they might have gaping at the furniture in astonishment. Still, they didn't perfectly conceal the fact that they could quite easily feel the wealth oozing from the walls.

The three of them walked into the room, talking excitedly, and settled into one of the corners of main room. Yoshino eyed them warily. From their body language, Yoshino knew exactly what they discussing.

Teenage daughters, of course. What else?

Yoshino excused herself from her friends and walked over, partly to try and overhear something, but mostly just to get them to stop talking. It made her nervous.

"—we were just talking about that the other day," Uchida's father was saying, not noticing her approach. "It really is a good thing they're both girls, otherwise I don't know what—"

"Look at this," Yoshino's mother said, interrupting him loudly, holding up a bottle of wine wrapped in a little bow for Yoshino to inspect. "Bordeaux. We're going to have to ask the cook, but I'm sure it's a good wine."

Yoshino wasn't sure either, but nodded.

"We thought it'd be a good idea to get your, uh, well get her a gift," Uchida's mother said, smiling up from her seated position. "And for you…"

She dug around in her purse for while, before coming up with a small, bound picture book.

Yoshino eyes widened, but she tried to conceal her apprehension. Photographs: her mortal enemy.

"We thought you might like a copy of all the pictures we've taken of you and Uchida over the years," Uchida's mother said, holding it up. "I realized we'd never given you any. We asked Uchida to help us put it on the computer, but you know how it is, asking them to do things for you…"

She glanced at Yoshino's mother, who nodded sympathetically, though Yoshino was sure she had no good reason to do so.

Yoshino knew it wasn't mere flakiness or procrastination on Uchida's part, no matter what her parents might be fooled into thinking.

Before her mother got a chance to reach for it, Yoshino snatched the album up, glancing through it rapidly for anything she wouldn't want seen, even while pretending that that _wasn't_ what she was doing.

It was pretty tame stuff, she decided, all pictures she had seen before. Elementary school graduation, a trip to the beach, a trip to an amusement park, a picture of Uchida holding up her middle school entrance exam results proudly, other hand formed into a thumbs-up right in front of the lens, Yoshino's face accidentally visible in the top right of the frame.

She stopped, a look of consternation crossing her face, rapidly suppressed. She quickly sifted through the rest of the pictures and made a snap decision.

She'd just have to bear it. Some embarrassing stuff, but nothing she could justify hiding—or burning.

"When did you take this picture?" she asked, turning the album around, pointing at one of the worst offenders. The three adults leaned in for a closer look.

"Oh, that," Uchida's mother said, with amusement. "What was that, last year?"

She glanced at her husband for confirmation. He nodded.

"I just thought you two were so cute!" she explained. "So I grabbed the camera and took a quick shot."

She laughed a little, self-satisfied. Yoshino's mother chuckled a little, but seemed…less amused than Yoshino had thought she would be.

Yoshino filed that observation away, for inspection as soon as possible.

Yoshino turned the album back around, looking at the picture. It wasn't that bad, she decided.

Late summertime, just before the end of break. They had slept on Uchida's floor, on mats, for some relief from the heat. This was a picture of the two of them, sleeping in opposite directions, limbs asprawl, each of them with one foot firmly jammed in the other's face, but asleep nonetheless.

She did the mental equivalent of a shrug, reconciling herself to the prospect of her friends seeing this. Perfectly fine; where else could she possibly sleep at Uchida's place? And surely they'd all done embarrassing sleep postures at some point in their lives.

Her mother looked thoughtful, but before she could say anything, Arisawa showed up out of some mysterious corner to whisper something in her mother's ear. The woman nodded.

"I'm sorry," she said, nodding at all of them. "I've got something to do just now. Excuse me."

The woman hurried off.

"Thank you," Yoshino said, addressing Uchida's parents. "I, er, do you mind hanging onto this and showing it to her some more when she gets back?"

She held the album out in her hand. Uchida's father nodded and took it.

Yoshino started to head back to the others, seated around a table in the middle of the room, but then had an idea, stopping in front of them.

_Why not do the violin thing now?_ She thought.

She had decided it might be reasonable to play the violin for them a little. Nothing too long or meaningful. Crowd-pleasers, like she did for the servants occasionally. It didn't have to be a problem, and would also be a welcome distraction from the pictures.

It had taken a week to convince herself to show something like that to her other friends.

She pursed her lips, considering.

_No. Not yet. Instead, let's take a break for a bit, think about things a little._

She excused herself again, causing Uchida to raise an eyebrow, and headed off to climb the spiral stairs in the antechamber, deeper into the house.

In her room, she sat on her bed, peering into the middle distance, and considered her observations of the day.

The staff had mellowed over the years regarding her friends, whom they had begun to see more and more frequently. Their original muted objections had been on vague theoretical grounds, involving questions of class, and she wasn't surprised their disapproval had fallen away over time. Today, she hadn't heard so much as an indirect aspersion cast at them.

It was a stupid objection anyway.

_I should have started bringing them here a long time ago_, she thought.

Arisawa was tougher. The man knew too much, and had other, less theoretical reasons to disapprove. He was also altogether much too wily.

Still, he confined his disapproval of her friends to occasional comments and elaborate subterfuge, which he found strange enjoyment in. She supposed he had earned it, after all these years. He was only trying to give advice, in his own peculiar way. It wasn't a big deal.

For now anyway. His reaction, overall, boded ill in certain aspects.

Her mother, for her part, had never registered even the slightest hint of unhappiness with her choice of friends, even though she knew almost as much as Arisawa did.

Yoshino suspected this meant very little, however. The woman was pretty much inscrutable when it came to things like this. She supposed one did not spend eleven years running a full household and raising a kid like her—especially raising a kid like her—without learning very well how to strategically withhold emotions.

She had no real evidence for her suppositions, though. Indeed, her mother was openly affectionate, playful, fussy, angry—whatever the situation called for.

It was just a feeling she had, then, a feeling that had grown progressively stronger over the past year or so. Her mother was hiding something.

If true, it had to involve Yoshino somehow. She doubted it was about her friends. Her mother didn't seem like the type of person who would hide it if she found Chiaki and Touma distasteful. More likely, she would say it straight to her face, matter-of-fact. Her mother's judgment would insist on that course of action, Yoshino was sure.

Her mother wouldn't hide something unless she thought it was truly better off hidden.

Earlier, on being shown the picture, her mother had slipped, or so Yoshino thought. Her mother's laugh had rang false. She had been thinking of something else, and then forced the chuckle out.

_Was it my imagination?_ She thought. _Maybe she was simply distracted._

What could it possibly be, anyway? Was there something she found disturbing about a picture of Yoshino and Uchida kicking each other in the face? After all, there was nothing—

Her train of thought screeched to a halt. She ground her teeth slightly.

_Maybe_, she thought. _Maybe._

It still didn't make sense, not entirely, but it made just enough sense to be possible, even plausible.

_There's no use dwelling on it_, she thought. _It's a premature judgment without more evidence._

_But do I have any other explanation?_

A few more minutes of fruitless introspection later, she turned gladly to the next topic.

Uchida's parents knew nothing of importance, she was sure. If nothing else, Uchida's father's comment earlier had established that. Unless the waters here ran much deeper than she thought they did.

She lay down on her bed, feeling suddenly tired.

_Cycles upon cycles, wheels within wheels…I'm going to drive myself crazy someday if I keep thinking like this. But what else am I supposed to do?_

_What the hell am I doing moping around like this at my own birthday party?_ Another part of here pointed out.

She jumped straight off her bed, tossing all of it aside. She was determined to go back to having fun.

_I can be decisive when I want to be_, she thought.

When she returned to the main room, she found every single one of the guests crowded around a large photo album, a different one, far too large to be the gift from Uchida's parents. Her mother was among them, pointing at various sections of it.

Yoshino knew instantly that she had been out-maneuvered, in her distraction.

Uchida stood up and ran over, spluttering.

"They—they—" she began, pointing in the direction of the group.

"I know," Yoshino said, grabbing Uchida's shoulder reassuringly. "Which one is it? The new one?"

"No!" Uchida said, eyes wide with distress. "It's the one with the costumes! You know, from back when…"

Uchida made several nervous gestures at once, but Yoshino was already walking forward, dreading what was to come.

_No hope_, she thought, feeling momentarily numb.

"Yuka," Uchida's mother said, looking up. "Why didn't you ever tell us about any of this? You two are so adorable!"

Mortified, Uchida blushed and dodged behind Yoshino, using her as a shield.

Yoshino glanced everywhere around the room, at Uchida looking timidly over her shoulder, at a servant standing at attention next to the doorway—but watching them with obvious interest—at the collection of snack foods on the table. Everywhere, that is, except at the inquisitive, smirking looks of her friends, whose expressions she dearly did not want to see.

"Ah, well, that's, I, uh, it, um—" she stammered, tongue-tied for the first time in a long, long time.

"I had no idea you were so literarily-inclined," Chiaki said, eyes serious, looking slightly betrayed. "Why didn't you ever say anything? We could have talked…"

"These really are cute costumes!" Makoto said, head still down, forgetting himself for just a moment.

"I mean, look at all this," Touma said. "Is this one Romeo and Juliet?"

Yoshino stood, stock-still, feeling the blush crawl its way up her neck and into her cheeks, despite every effort to repress it.

A loud "click!" next to her shocked her out of her stupor. One of the butlers, the one assigned to photography, to her right.

She turned and gave said butler the harshest glare she could manage. He fled precipitously.

She felt rather than saw Touma smirking mockingly at her.

Revenge must taste quite sweet.

_Oh, to hell with it_, she thought.

She made a gesture of absolute dismay, no longer bothering to hide her distress at all.

"Was this—did you have to show them this? Was it really necessary?" she demanded of her mother.

The woman made an innocent expression, pursing her lips.

"Well, they _are_ adorable pictures," she said. "And I realized I never did manage to show it to Yuka-chan's parents. Oh come on, it's not _tha_t bad!"

This last sentence was directed at Yoshino's decision to turn around and clutch the Uchida's arms for strength. Uchida didn't look any less horrified than she was at the whole thing, and, after a moment, clutched right back.

"Alright," Yoshino said, propping herself back up on Uchida's shoulders. "Alright. You've all seen it. I will humor you by telling you about all the plays and books. And then _we will never speak of this again._"

"As if," Touma muttered under her breath.

"Whatever!" Yoshino said, spinning back around, the mortification still on her face. "Sit down, shut up, and listen!"

* * *

Other than that, the party went quite smoothly. They talked and ate snacks, cupcakes and pudding. The cook really _had_ pulled it off this year, and no wonder, as he himself had explained:

"Well, I did a little, er…what's the word…well, snooping around, and found out what they were doing to it. It was vinegar all along!

"Vinegar," she repeated skeptically.

"Balsamic, to be precise," he said. "Don't look at me! I didn't come up with the idea. But you agree it works, yes?"

A bit later on, the cook brought out his masterpiece of a cake, and for the first time in years some members of the audience—namely, the new ones—were sincerely amazed. They sang, and the photographer acquired yet more pictorial evidence of her blushing—evidence that would have to be destroyed later, she resolved.

In some aspects, it was just like every other year. After she blew out the candles, she grabbed the knife and divided the thing into perfectly apportioned pieces. She received a book of haiku from her mother and a pair of clip-on earrings from Arisawa. Perhaps, this year, she might finally get hers pierced. Probably not, though.

In other respects, it was completely different.

They played video games for a while, staring up at the giant television in one of the side rooms, and she helped to peer-pressure Chiaki and Touma into accepting a turn-based system for using the console. By now, they all knew better than to adopt the intuitive victory-based system. Such a system would, of course, degenerate rapidly and irreversibly into Chiaki vs. Touma matches _ad perpetuum_.

Later, she took them into her room, where, before anyone had a chance to settle down, she immediately packed her violin back into its case and placed it back in her closet. They remarked at this, not even having been aware up until then that she played an instrument, but she shook her head and refused to comment.

Perhaps next year.

Then they left, Arisawa driving them back, Uchida staying behind. Yoshino waved goodbye, standing in the doorway, happy that she had blended the two worlds successfully, just a little.

Then she turned to go back in.

"I don't want to sound greedy or pushy," Yoshino said, a little tentatively, as she and Uchida walked through the hallways to her room. "But I was surprised you didn't get me anything this year."

"Of course I did," Uchida said, at first forcefully, then quietly. "Just…I thought it would be a little bit strange to give it in public like that."

Yoshino fought the urge to raise an eyebrow.

"I see," she said. "Where is it?"

"In your room," Uchida said.

Yoshino fell back a few steps, heart thumping suddenly in her ears, irrational as always.

Unsolicited thoughts pushed themselves foremost in her mind and, try as she might, she couldn't push them aside. She started to feel hot.

What could it possibly be? In her room?

"Well, come on," Uchida said, standing in her doorway, looking back at her. "What are you waiting for?"

She swallowed surreptitiously, then walked forward. It couldn't be. She was being stupid. There must be a simple explanation.

When she crossed the threshold, she felt a hand grab hers, pulling her forward. Her eyes widened—

And were instantly shrouded in darkness, covered by the brim of a hat. She felt Uchida shove something into her hand.

Surprised, she pushed up the hat brim with her left thumb, blinking at the…wooden pipe in her right hand.

"A Sherlock Holmes costume!" Uchida explained excitedly, clasping her hands like…well, like the schoolgirl she was. "To replace your old one. I've got the coat and stuff too, in my bag! You don't know how hard it was to find something like this. I'm sorry the hat is so big; I hope you like it!"

Yoshino started laughing at herself, quietly, shaking the pipe in her hand as if it contained actual tobacco. What other reaction was possible?

Uchida creased her eyebrows.

"Why are you laughing?" she asked, looking annoyed and concerned. "Is it funny? You don't like it?"

"No, no, I like it," Yoshino said hastily, waving her hand with the pipe, smiling uncontrollably. "I'm just surprised, is all. Why did you think you had to do this in private?"

Uchida frowned, in thought, not in displeasure.

"Well, I didn't know how you'd feel about the others seeing it. You're queerly private, about things like this. And then everyone would make you dress up, and take pictures of you…you don't like that."

Yoshino laughed slightly, nodding in acknowledgement. Of course.

_Of course._

"_Well, then, Watson_," she said, putting on her best impression of the great detective, right down to the straightened back, stiff outheld arm, and spoken English. "_If you do not mind, may I beg of you my coat?_"

"_Oh, of course, Holmes_," Uchida said, failing to keep a straight face. "_Just let me find it in my bag._"

"Do you think we should take a picture?" Uchida asked, when she had the coat on. "Just for ourselves, I mean."

"Maybe later," Yoshino said, shaking her head. "I don't feel like it. I'm just trying it on."

"Fair enough," Uchida said, stepping forward to work on the top buttons of Yoshino's coat.

It was just the sort of casual gesture that should have flown right by, unnoticed, but her mind, already primed by her earlier inanity, responded eagerly once more.

The thumping against her eardrums was even louder and more insistent than it had been before.

She could feel Uchida's breath on her neck, the slight contact between their two bodies, could see far too much of where Uchida's shirt had slipped up her waist as she leaned over. It reminded her of all that was possible.

Her fingers twitched inside the sleeves of the overly-large coat. She grew increasingly aware of the sake she had hidden in her spare school bag. It was so close, and with just a little effort, just a tiny breach of morality…

A wooden tapping on Yoshino's door, quiet as it was, saved her.

"Girls?"

Her mother's voice.

They turned, Yoshino pushing up the brim of her hat again, Uchida abandoning the buttons.

"Oh, come on," she protested. "It's not even ten."

"No, not that," her mother said, shaking her head. "Do you mind? I want to talk to you."

She addressed her statement pretty clearly to Yoshino, and Yoshino alone.

Yoshino and Uchida glanced at each other.

"Alright, just a moment," Yoshino said, taking off her hat and handing it, with her pipe, to Uchida.

"Only half an hour or so," her mother said, to Uchida, apologetic, as Yoshino shrugged off the coat.

_Half an hour?_ Yoshino thought, with surprise. _That's pretty substantial._

Uchida looked disappointed, but shrugged resignedly, crouching down to gain access to her bags.

"What is this all about?" Yoshino asked, as they strode diagonally down the hallway.

Her mother put a finger to her mouth, indicating silence. That only peaked Yoshino's interest more.

They slipped silently into her mother's room, closing the door behind them.

It was neat and orderly, fitting the woman's personality. Likewise, the personal effects carefully placed around the room made it clear whom it belonged to: on the desk, a framed picture of Yoshino as a toddler, carrying a shovel. Another framed picture, of the former head of the staff, the "Old Man", from all those years ago, also on the desk. A little clay pipe Yoshino had made when she was seven. On the wall, a framed certification of Yoshino's violin skills.

She had an office too, of course, befitting the chief servant of the house, but that was for conducting more formal business than talking to her beloved charge.

Her mother walked over to the desk and picked up a large stack of paper, covered with printed text and handwriting, then walked back over to Yoshino.

"I was going to wait a few years to do this," she said, handing it to her for perusal. "But I think it's alright now."

Yoshino took the stack, browsing through it as efficiently as she could. Bank statements, investment fund reports, letters from hedge funds, handwritten sheets containing what appeared to be passwords, addresses, phone numbers…instructions for accessing money.

"Do not under any circumstances lose any of this, ever," her mother said, looking at her seriously.

"What is this?" Yoshino asked.

Her mother smiled at her lack of understanding.

"Information about every single cent that belongs directly to you,"—by implication, not to her parents—"which includes the inheritance left to you by your, er, maternal grandparents and all the surplus money we've received from your parents. All of these are joint under my name and yours. I'm just giving you the ability to access it."

Yoshino looked through the sheets, wide-eyed. She was worth an enormous amount, just on her own, far more than she would have guessed, having never worried about it. And that—that was just a tiny fraction of what her biological parents must have.

She also reflected that they had shown an enormous amount of trust in her de facto mother, and in the now dead Old Man, to allow them some direct and free control over the money. That, in fact, her never-seen grandparents had also shown the same amount of trust. Joint accounts!

Though it was strange; why would they leave money to her directly, instead of to their daughter?

"I'll give it all to you solely when you turn twenty," the woman next to her said. "For now, I just think you're old enough to start knowing a little of this."

The woman's face gave no sign of all that she was still concealing: that the yearly remittance, while technically from her parents, was in fact more or less mandated by an outside authority, and that said parents had no control over the vast family fortune. That she herself had certain rights which made her more or less undismissable. That her maternal grandparents, perhaps moved by a little bit of familial feeling, had very good reasons for giving the money directly to the Old Man's care. That she kept her name on every single account, despite the suspicions it could raise, for a very, very good reason.

She did not trust them. Not at all.

Instead of revealing any of this, she smiled slightly.

"As you may have gathered," she said. "This is for your fifteenth birthday, so you can buy yourself something a little more extravagant. I just hope you're not stupid enough to now go blow all your money on racecars, or something."

Yoshino shook her head, smiling a little at the joke. Of course not.

"Anyway," her mother said. "While we're here, there's also something else, not about this."

Yoshino looked up from the sheaf of documents, to find her mother seated on the bed, signaling for her to come join her.

This was unusual, she decided. Consciously or not, the woman felt a need to get her in a seated position, full of implications of emotional attachment, before she said whatever was coming next. That couldn't bode well.

She sat down regardless. It wouldn't have made sense to refuse.

"What is it?" she asked, finding the documents in her hands somewhat unwieldy. What was she supposed to do with them? Hide them in her desk with her school papers? Hardly secure enough.

"Now that you're a bit older," her mother said, unusually hesitant, placing her arm around Yoshino. "Perhaps…perhaps it's time to drop this habit of sleeping in the same bed as Yuka all the time, hmm? I know you don't like it, but I mean, you're fifteen now. You're a bit old for that."

Yoshino's expression had frozen, and she turned her head only stiffly.

"What does it matter?" she asked, face a mask of unhappiness, heart turbulent. "It's not like anyone can see us."

"Well, it's just a bit of a childish habit," her mother said reasonably, looking her in the eyes. "And I just, er, well I just think it's time you stopped. Think about it. We can easily get Yuka a separate room. I mean, is it that big a deal?"

Her mother spoke with a careful combination of casualness and caution, her expression nearly perfect—but, knowing to look, Yoshino could see the flaws, the extra bit of concern in the eyes, the slight apprehension in her posture.

She imputed the things her mother would not say, the real motivation behind the request.

It wasn't normal, she was really saying. It was risky. Who knows what might happen if the two of you stayed like this? You might go too far someday. That would be a real problem. Best be careful.

_It's too late_, Yoshino thought.

She also had no reasonable grounds for refusing, she realized, not without revealing too much or starting an argument. More pertinently, she wasn't even sure what her side of the argument would _be_, just that she wanted to do everything in her power to avoid having it.

"Alright," she said, doing her utmost to conceal her despondence. "I'll consider it."

She knew she was only putting it off, but…what else could she possibly do? She was at a loss. Unable to talk to Uchida, unable to talk to her guardian, unsure what she herself even wanted.

She knew only that she wanted the future, with all its baleful consequences and uncertainties, to stay away somehow.

Her mother nodded and let go of her shoulder.

She walked slowly to the door, then back down the hallway, hearing her own footsteps resound on the wooden floor, the documents in her hand feeling like they weighed a thousand pounds.

"What's wrong?" Uchida asked when she reached her own room again, waiting for her in her pajamas, hair down and at her shoulders. "What's all that paper?"

"No, nothing," Yoshino said. "Nothing at all."

* * *

That night was a jumbled mixture of confused dreams, one on top of another, but only one really mattered. That one stuck to her memory, and woke her in the middle of the night.

_She walked between the chairs, full of people standing up out of their seats, pouring into the aisles, desperate to leave, but refusing to move too far, every one of them looking for someone else in the crowd._

_She knew, without looking around, what this was: her middle school graduation. It was one of those facts that one just knew in dreams, certainty without explanation, just like she had forgotten that this particular event wouldn't actually happen for another two months. _

_Another anomaly only possible in dreams: she was filled with bliss, for no reason at all. Walking forward, she was simply, undeniably, unbelievably happy. She felt at peace with the world._

_Spotting who she was looking for, she turned and trod determinedly forward._

"_Mom!" she yelled, waving, still walking, still smiling irrepressibly._

_Her mother, who had been preoccupied peering around the room, turned to face her, a smile breaking out on her face. The woman spread her arms out for a hug, but thought better of it, and instead clasped her hands behind her back._

_Yoshino held out her diploma, a cheap mass-produced piece of paper which she knew would be carefully stored away regardless._

_Her mother took it and read it, sighing._

"_When did you get this old, and this tall? I don't remember getting older…"_

_Yoshino's heart warmed at this cliché._

"_You're not old," she said, giving her mother the hug she had refrained from earlier._

_While she did, she thought about how long the day had been, how good it would be to get home, eat dinner, fight with her sister, sleep in her bed. How satisfying it would be._

"_Where is your sister, anyway?" her mother asked, glancing at her watch, once she had let Yoshino go. "The family's waiting."_

"_Uchida?" she asked, slightly puzzled, frowning._

"_Yes," her mother said. "Who else could I mean?"_

_Oh, of course. Her twin._

_She felt herself furrow her brow._

_Her sister? Twin?_

That can't be right. How could I possibly dare—

_Her eyes widened._

_That remembrance, the intrusion of an actual memory into this false world, struck her like lightning._

"_Is something wrong?" her mother asked, perturbed._

How could I do that to my own sister? _She thought._

"_I wouldn't!" she said out loud." I couldn't! How could I? I—"_

Her eyes snapped open. It was still dark. Maybe three in the morning, if her internal sense of time could be trusted.

She spent a long time staring at the ceiling, clutching at the vestiges of the dream, listening to the metronome of Uchida's breathing next to her.

She had been so happy, she thought. So happy believing a fantasy like that. So happy believing that she had a family to go home to, instead of this torturous arrangement of parents who were never there, hired servants hovering over her, and a woman who was like an adoptive mother, only not.

Wistfully, she remembered the hug she had given her in the dream. There had been no hesitation, no anomalous subconscious twinge. Simply her mother.

Sometimes, in her weaker moments, she wished she really could get herself adopted, somehow. It would make things so much clearer—but of course that was impossible.

She thought about those sheets of paper hidden in her desk, eyes still seeing the images of her dream, her own personal paradise. All those yen, all those dollars, all those euros…how much did they really mean?

If she ever told Uchida, the girl would probably have an apoplectic fit. For a girl who spent so much time around her, she certainly responded strangely to money.

Yoshino smiled slightly at her own joke, but it failed to dispel the underlying issue.

She was far too old now to go crawling into her mother's bed—no, her chief maidservant's bed—and spend the night huddled at her side. Too old, even though she really wanted to.

So she turned over, and wrapped an arm around Uchida, whom she hoped would overlook, just this once, an improper gesture of intimacy. This would serve well enough as paradise, for one day.

_My Yuka_, she thought, the world finally starting to slip away…

* * *

The next day was still the weekend, a Sunday. That was helpful indeed.

"Good morning!" she greeted cheerily, stepping flamboyantly into the heated restaurant, Uchida in tow. Her piercing voice caused the patrons of the establishment to look at her curiously.

Next to the window, a suited man startled, nearly jumping out of his seat.

_Good, he's here_, she thought, smiling deviously.

"Par—party of two?" the greeter asked, a tad nervously.

"No, no," she said, again much louder than necessary. "We're just here to visit a friend of mine. He's over there."

She pointed straight at the man who had jumped, and who has now watching her like a deer trapped by a pack of wolves.

"He's not expecting us," she confided in a perfectly audible whisper, leaning forward. "But it'll be alright. We'll be needing menus, by the way."

The two of them walked past a couple of tables, occupied by customers watching them warily.

"Good morning, Arisawa!" Yoshino said, again loud, sitting next to the man, beginning the process of shedding her outdoor attire in the restaurants cozy warmth. She dropped her purse, and off came jacket, scarf, gloves.

"Yeah, good morning!" Uchida echoed, doing likewise, and sitting across from her.

Uchida had been well-briefed on the plan, which, simply put, was to act as obnoxious as possible. That was well within both their capabilities.

"What—what are you doing here?" Arisawa asked in a choked whisper, looking at her warily.

"Young mistress," he appended, a few moments too late.

"Oh, I just thought I'd pop in," Yoshino said, ignoring his hint to lower her voice. "Maybe eat lunch here. Why are you here, anyway?"

"Well, I have to wait _somewhere_ after I drop you off," he whispered. "Though it defeats the purpose if you're here too. How did you—"

"Yeah, isn't it obvious?" Uchida interrupted. "This place is close to my house, so he must be here all the time. _Duh_."

She directed this at Yoshino, who played along.

"Don't 'Duh!' me!" Yoshino complained.

Uchida stuck her tongue out, making it quite audible. Yoshino returned the favor

"If it is your intention to eat here," he said desperately. "I should leave—"

"No, no," Yoshino refused, loud as the entire rest of the conversation. "We're here to visit you, obviously. I wonder when we're going to get our menus? Waiter!"

Arisawa fiddled with his own open menu, clearly having lost both his appetite and ability to focus on his lunch.

A waitress showed up with their menus.

"And who is this?" the waitress asked, companionably.

Yoshino was momentarily confused by the question, until she realized it was directed at Arisawa.

"Ah, well, these are, I mean, she is—" Arisawa stumbled.

"Oh, it's her!" the waitress said, turning to Yoshino and ignoring Uchida completely.

"Well it's nice to meet you, Yoshino-san," she added, bowing slightly.

Yoshino was still confused.

"And why didn't you tell me she was visiting?" the waitress asked Arisawa, wearing a stern expression, hand on hip.

"Well, I, uh—" Arisawa began.

"You know better than that!" the waitress interrupted.

Then she said one more word, a name, and Yoshino's eyes widened.

_His personal name! They're on a personal name basis!_

She glanced at Arisawa, to her right, looking quite embarrassed, then back at the waitress who, she realized, was quite pretty. A dark realization settled in on her.

_How—how dare he! _She thought, an unexpected amount of rage piping its way into her veins.

"Arisawa-san," she growled, giving him one of her coldest glares.

Arisawa visibly blanched.

"Young mistress, th—this woman—" he began.

"I know," Yoshino interrupted, voice cold with anger, surprised at the amount she had invested in this. She had no idea if her mother was even interested, after all.

"She's my _sister_! My younger sister!" Arisawa said, banging his menu on the table.

He said it nearly full-volume, even louder than Yoshino had been before, causing nearby patrons to openly glare at him.

"Oh," Yoshino said, genuinely embarrassed by her own jumping the gun. "I see."

"I get it!" Arisawa said, in a harsh whisper. "I've learned my lesson. It won't happen again! Let me have my lunch in peace!"

His sister looked very confused.

"Yes, I am his sister," she said, a bit worried. "Is something, uh—"

"No, no, it's fine," Yoshino said, waving her hand and speaking quickly to end the topic. "Sorry about that. Just a bit of confusion. Anyway, I'll just have the eggs and sausage, with some tea."

She pointed at something likely-looking on the menu.

"I'll, uh, have the same thing," Uchida said, a moment later.

"You don't want to look at your menus some more?" the waitress asked, still glancing at Arisawa warily.

"No, we're fine," Yoshino insistly, handing her their menus.

She looked at Arisawa, who indicated things were okay with a hand gesture.

"The usual," he said, handing in his menu as well.

She trod off, glancing backwards occasionally. The orders were simple enough for her to remember without writing down, especially since she had refrained from asking them a thing about customizing their meals.

"Happy?" Arisawa grumbled, looking at Yoshino, once his sister was out of sight.

"As a matter of fact, yes," she said smugly.

She started to say something else, but became conscious of a low buzzing noise.

"Ah, my phone," Arisawa said, reaching into his pocket, his composure already beginning to recover. "I apologize, but do you mind if I…"

Yoshino waved him on, then listened in briefly on his half of the conversation.

"Hello?"

"Yes, she's right here."

His eyes shifted towards Yoshino, then snapped away.

Yoshino and Uchida glanced at each other as he listened.

"Why? Did something happen?" he asked into the receiver, looking confused.

"I—I see," he added, a long while later, his face transitioning from thoughtful, to surprised, to worried, to shaken.

"Well, I'll be seeing you," he finished, making a transparent effort to smoothen his expression and act casual.

He hung up and put the phone away. They looked at him curiously.

"What was that about?" Uchida asked, finally, when he didn't say anything. "

"Nothing important," Arisawa said, shrugging, but he didn't even do a half-decent job of faking nonchalance. He wasn't as good an actor as her mother.

"It was her, wasn't it?" Yoshino asked, watching his face carefully.

She didn't need to say who she meant.

"Yes," Arisawa admitted, knowing he couldn't hide it.

He paused for a moment too long.

"But like I said, it's nothing important."

"You are a horrible actor, Arisawa," she commented, rearranging her jacket on the seat. "We are going straight home after lunch to see what this is all about, whether you tell us or not."

She looked at Uchida for confirmation. Uchida nodded.

Arisawa grimaced.

"There is no need to change your plans, though—" he began.

"We have no plans," Yoshino said decisively, then smiled drily, looking at him. "We were only here to embarrass you, as you probably deduced. After that, we only intended to while away the hours at Yuka's."

"Then do that!" Arisawa insisted, with too much emotion. "You should—"

He stopped, looking at Yoshino's narrowed eyes.

"What is this about, Arisawa-san?" she asked, ice in her voice. "I _can_ order you to tell me."

"I don't know!" he protested. "But the Boss recommends—"

"I know what she recommends," Yoshino said, in the same tone as before. "It's obvious enough from your demeanor. It's bad news, and she wants me to have my fun first. I know how she thinks. But that's not going to work, not now that I know something's up."

Arisawa winced, then looked down at the table.

"It was unfortunate you were here to see it," he said. "But I really do not know what is going on. I should not have been so obvious."

"That's okay," Yoshino said, voice suddenly gentle, well aware she was reassuring something more than twice her age. "It is unseemly for her to be deceiving me, in the first place. After all, technically speaking, I'm the 'Boss', not her."

She smiled amiably at her own joke. So did Uchida. Arisawa's mouth only twitched.

"So why did she call you?" Yoshino asked, leaning back into her seat. "She could have just kept quiet and not said anything, but instead, she calls you. That seems rather odd."

"Perceptive as always, young mistress," Arisawa said, sitting up, regaining a little of his typical aplomb.

He looked at her.

"She recommends that you not bring Uchida back today," he said gravely. "That is the reason she called. She wanted me to tell you that, whenever you chose to return."

Yoshino looked back.

"She sounded quite serious," he added, by way of argument.

Yoshino shook her head decisively.

"I know what she's thinking," she said. "But if it really is this serious, whatever it is, I want Yuka with me. Even if she has to stay outside the room while we talk."

He watched her.

"That is an order," she added, a moment later.

"Alright," he conceded, sighing and turning his head back to face front.

"She won't be happy with my performance here today," he said ruefully.

"Well, I won't let her fire you for this, trust me," Yoshino said sardonically.

With impeccable timing, the waitress returned, laying the dishes out in front of them.

She watched the waitress, thoughtful.

She prided herself on her ability to read people and situations. It had not failed her this time; she had made all the right deductions. But what did it mean? The situation was unprecedented, and her deductions told her that, whatever had happened, it must be unprecedented as well.

* * *

In the end, she left Uchida outside of the room.

Arisawa shut the door behind her with a dull thud, leaving her standing inside the threshold, breathing in the musty air. She had no doubt that both Arisawa and Uchida would immediately shift into whatever positions were best for eavesdropping through the door—though given the soundproofing of the room, she questioned whether they would actually manage to hear anything.

The office of her chief maidservant was one of the less desirable rooms in the house. While Yoshino's room and the dining room overlooked breathtaking panoramic views, and the servant's rooms all had agreeable views of various parts of the outside grounds, the office had no windows at all, firmly ensconced deep within the building. As such, it was a stuffy room, an atmosphere further reinforced by the dark furniture, the antique calligraphy scrolls hanging on the walls, and, most importantly, the multiple enormous shelves of books, inherited from the Old Man himself. All in all, it should have given the impression of a respectable old library, but instead it had a strange way of making her feel small.

It made no difference; her mother spent hardly any time in the room, and by extension Yoshino spent even less.

She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the fragrance of old paper, and stepped forward.

"Why the formality?" she asked, approaching the desk where her mother sat peering at a sheaf of legalistic-looking documents under the soft light of an old-fashioned lamp.

"It seemed appropriate," the woman said, returning a thin smile.

Yoshino sat facing her, glancing at the only personal effect in the entire room, a small framed portrait resting on the dark wooden desk. Yoshino when she was seven, wearing a kimono. Children's Day.

"You're early," her mother said, smiling more genuinely, making an effort to dispel the oppressive atmosphere. "Too early."

"So it seems," Yoshino said.

The woman made a bemused gesture.

"I knew I should have hung up the moment Arisawa said you were there," she said, shaking her head. "There was no reason you had to rush back."

"Well, I couldn't enjoy myself anymore," Yoshino said. "Not with whatever this is hanging over my head like a Damocles sword."

Her mother closed her eyes at the reference. Yoshino could see, for the first time, that she was fighting quite a bit of emotion.

Just as Yoshino was about to speak, the woman sighed, leaning back in her chair, turning it slightly so she could gesture at the books behind her.

"You know," she said, eyes wistful, "when I first came here, I thought the Old Man was just an eccentric old butler who had spent way too long in this line of work."

The woman shifted in her chair.

"Don't get me wrong," she said, glancing at Yoshino. "It's just that most of us expect to get married, have kids—you know, live normally. A lot of the women, especially, expect to quit when they get married. Those who don't expect to retire on schedule, when they get old enough. There are very few who keep at it like he did."

Yoshino, who had her arm extended, about to tell her to get on with it already, leaned back in her chair, changing her mind. It was very rare for her mother to be in a discursive mood, so it probably behooved her to listen.

"Before he died," her mother said, "he explained it to me, all of it. Why he stayed, what he was trying to do. At the time, I only partially understood. I definitely understand now."

She looked at Yoshino out of the corner of her eye, and Yoshino read there that this was no mere mood. She was saying it deliberately, for her benefit.

"I promised him I would stay here, at least until you became an adult," she said. "It seemed like forever to stay, but I promised. I promised because…well I told myself I was a sucker for children, but I'm not sure, now, if that's all it was."

Yoshino blinked rapidly, holding back an expression of surprise. Her mother never talked about things like this. This was the first she had ever heard about it.

Her mother closed her eyes again, and Yoshino felt a strong glimmer of unease.

"Now," the woman continued, making eye contact for the first time. "Now I'm prepared to stay much longer than even that, if you'll have me."

Yoshino wondered what her face looked like then, whether it showed all that she felt and wanted to say.

While she struggled to form words, her mother interrupted her again.

"Do you remember convincing me you needed to move? Way out there, on the hillside?" she asked, changing topics radically.

"Of course I do," Yoshino responded, blinking with surprise.

"And it was your idea, right?"

Yoshino watched the woman's face carefully.

"Yes," she admitted. "Yes it was."

Her mother shook her head ruefully, smiling.

"It was a while before I realized just what had happened," she said. "I always knew you were special, but that—that was definitely something."

"I was right, though," Yoshino pointed out, sidestepping the flattery. "It's not like I tricked you or anything."

"Of course you were," her mother said.

"Just what is going on?" Yoshino asked, placing her hands on the desk, impatient, no longer able to restrain herself.

Her mother surprised her by gathering Yoshino's hands back together, holding them on the table in a gesture of intimacy.

"I want you to understand," she said, eyes intense. "I am not your mother. You know that. But whatever happens, I will be here. Marriage, kids, all of that—I'd give it up, if you needed me. Or I'd leave instead, if that's what you wanted."

Yoshino stared back, staggered.

"What are you—" she began.

Her mother patted her on the head affectionately.

"Allow me to get at last to the point," she said. "I hope you are ready."

Yoshino looked up at her, eyes wide, but the woman's face had already reconfigured itself into what was now an expression of cold fury.

"Your parents called," she said, voice icy, lapsing into what was clearly a prepared explanation. "Your _real_ parents. It's the first time I've ever spoken to them, myself. I thought your mother was you, at first. Your voices are surprisingly similar."

Yoshino felt something inside her crumble. The future had not stayed away, after all.

"She wanted _me_," her chief maidservant said, no longer disguising the anger in her voice, "And _you_, to know that they have decided on a perfectly lovely high school for you to attend, starting this March—no more of this comingling with your lessers. They also wanted us to know that, since you have not been visible at any of the relevant social gatherings, they have arranged a set of marriage possibilities for you, and await only your opinion on whom you would prefer, so that they may begin negotiations."—the slightest of pauses— "And they also want to meet, maybe talk about the possibility of living together, something like that. So they say."

She spoke bitingly and sarcastically, but she hesitated at the end of the last sentence, stopping to gauge Yoshino's frozen demeanor. So, as expected, the girl detested even the last prospect.

Not that she had really expected otherwise, but, even so, she felt a certain sense of guilty relief.

Then she finished, still sarcastic:

"They seem to feel that they are being eminently reasonable. Well, I suppose they at least had the decency not to call yesterday."

Yoshino was scarcely able to process any of it, speechless, staring back at her as if staring more fervently would solve all of her problems.

The old-fashioned clock on the shelf ticked, its pendulum swinging, as the two of them peered into each other's eyes.

"If you want to resist," her maidservant began, on a calmer note, "that should be more than possible, if you play your cards right. As a first step, you can speak with them, as they ask for, at the very least to buy a bit of time—"

"Speak to them?" Yoshino exclaimed, incredulous, hands clutching her armrests with unfathomable anger. "Speak to whom? These—these perfect strangers who think they can just waltz in one day and dictate my life? No!"

"You must try—" the woman began.

"I refuse!" Yoshino responded, voice rising, right arm swiping the air. "Why on earth—"

"We would not win a direct confrontation!" the woman insisted, leaning forward. "You have to!"

She held up and waved the sheaf of documents she had been reading earlier.

"Whatever you and I think, however worthless they may have been as parents, they are _still_ your legal guardians—until you are twenty, at least. In some countries, emancipating yourself would be as easy as showing the judge your bank account, but not here! Here, we also have to show negligence, and that is rather difficult since you are not exactly starving in the street."

"So what?" Yoshino demanded, rising out of her chair. "What can they do? Break their way in? If they come here, I'll throw them back out myself—if it doesn't make me too nauseous just looking at them!"

She glared back at her servant, daring her to contradict the idea.

"They could come here with the police and force their way in, for instance," the woman said, voice deliberate and calm. "Believe me, I've thought about this. I'm sure they could spin a convincing story about the malicious servants who have suborned their daughter with their lies. Alternatively, they could try to seize your assets, and starve you out. Like it or not, they have the legal strong hand. The last thing we want to do is trigger something of that sort."

"Joint accounts," Yoshino said, startled, the realization hitting her despite her nearly frenzied state of mind.

"Yes," her chief servant said, her lip curling slightly. "All these years later, my paranoia finally pays off. But it may not be a sufficient defense. A child's assets are her parents' assets, and I hardly have a right to any of it. It'd be years of court battles!"

With a twinge, the woman regretted having procrastinated so long on explaining the will to Yoshino. She could hardly do so now, not with the state the girl was in. But it was critical information.

_I didn't think it would be that bad!_ she thought. _I thought I could do it now. I should have known. I should have done so first._

"Then let the lawyers fight!" Yoshino said. "In five years, it will no longer matter!"

"Which does not fix the primary issue!" her servant said, standing up as well. "That they could force their way in here and take you at any moment!"

"And would they actually do that?" Yoshino demanded. "To think that they'd ever do something like that—"

"Do we really want to find out?" the woman retorted. "Everything up to this point suggests that they wouldn't hesitate for a second! They're more than crazy enough!"

Silence prevailed, briefly, as they both chewed over the prospect.

"They could hardly force me to marry, no matter what happened," Yoshino pointed out, for lack of a better argument.

"If you would just talk to them," the woman argued, lowering her voice, trying to drag the conversation back to a place of calm, "and show them your well-justified antipathy to seeing them, you might be able to talk them out of the school-switch, and can almost certainly talk them out of living together. And after that, it would hardly matter if you promised marriage to some random ingrate, since you could just cancel the moment you turn twenty. Just talk to them, and then if they refuse, then we can try something else. But first—"

The whole time, Yoshino just stood there, listening to the voice of reason try to wash over her soothingly, the rational part of her mind nodding along with the logic. But rationality was losing its grip on her, growing feeble just when she needed it most. In its place was a surging anger and hatred, appalled that anyone could even talk about this that calmly.

All it could remember was the five-year-old, mute, abandoned, different, worthless. The little girl, so, so lonely—

"Talk to that bitch!" Yoshino snapped, losing whatever grip she had remaining on her anger. "And that—that—screw them! As if I could convince them! No! I refuse! I'd rather drown myself in acid!"

"Yoshino!" her maid said, grabbing her by the shoulders. "You have to! It's the rational thing to do! You know that! It's the right thing to do, the mature thing to do."

In her distress, she tried to use Yoshino's surname, her well-worn method of exerting maternal authority, but in this case it was a dreadful mistake.

"Mature," Yoshino growled, almost spitting the word back in her face. "All my life, I have been _mature_, and what have I gotten for it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing! It was a waste of my goddamn time!"

She wrenched herself out of the woman's hands, and staggered over her chair. She was beyond caring now what her face looked like.

With a gesture of inchoate fury, she turned, swung her arm, and struck the lamp off the table. Its cord caught and whipped out of the outlet, the stained glass lampshade striking the floor and shattering, followed immediately by the fragmenting of the ceramic base.

She stared at it, almost as appalled as her "mother", who watched her fearfully, petrified that she should show such anger.

"I am sorry about the lamp," she forced out, with all that remained of her self-control. "I—I'll get you a new one."

Then she turned on her heel and stormed out of the room, the walk turning into headlong flight before she was even out the door.

She shoved Uchida aside—Uchida!—and ran on, ignoring Nakanawa, who dodged hastily out of her way, not stopping until she was back on her own bed with her doors—both of them—locked behind her. She vented her anger on her blameless pillows, tears in her eyes.

Wherever they had been her whole life, they should damn well have stayed there.


	2. Fall from Grace

_Author's note: Yay for three month update. Lag due to some confluence of real life and this chapter being really long. So long, in fact, that it got divided into two parts. Chapter Two is only the first part. Second part awaits first revision._

_It's interesting to write something that postdates something else you haven't written yet. You have to avoid spoilers at all costs, and it only works in this case because Yoshino and Uchida are so isolated from Haruka and the others. Even so, you'll notice a distinct lack of even the most indirect reference to Haruka, Natsuki, Hosaka, etc._

* * *

"Aren't you supposed to be like…driving something to somewhere?" Uchida asked, challenging the suited man standing across from her. "What are you doing standing around here?"

Arisawa looked back at her, the two of them flanking the door behind which Yoshino and her chief servant were having their mysterious important discussion.

"I am the young mistress's _personal_ servant," he explained imperiously, "in the same way that Nakanawa-san is her _personal_ handmaid. I drive her when she wishes to go places, and buy things when she asks me to. I have no other official duties. It is only natural that I stand here, and wait for her if she needs me."

He emphasized the word "personal" in a tone which made it clear that it also carried connotations of "superior".

"But Nakanawa does other stuff too!" Uchida said. "I don't see her standing around all day after she drops off breakfast and stuff."

"Strictly speaking, she should. It's just that the young mistress never asks her for anything," he defended, adjusting his suit coat with gloved hands. "On the other hand, I drive her places all the time."

_Mostly to her school and my house_, Uchida thought drily.

"Besides, I could just as easily ask you the same question," he countered. "Didn't she tell you to wait in her room? Why are you here?"

"She didn't tell me to wait in her room," Uchida pointed out. "She told me to wait for her, period. I don't see what's so weird about waiting for her out here. What else am I supposed to do?"

They glared at each other.

"Alright," she said. "Let's just both admit we're standing here to try and listen in on what's going on in there. It's the only real reason."

"I am doing nothing of the sort," he asserted, face straight.

"Whatever. At least tell me what's going on!" Uchida demanded, leaning forward on her toes in an effort to increase her height.

"I really don't know," he said. "All I know is that she sounded really upset over the phone. Nothing else."

He held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture.

"Please," he pleased. "I'm not your enemy."

She subsided.

There was a moment of silence, and then she leaned over to place her ear on the keyhole.

"If they open the door, you're going to fall," Arisawa warned.

"Shh!" she ordered.

The man held his silence while she listened, brow furrowed in concentration.

"Anything?" he asked a long while later, voice barely audible.

"Nope," she conceded. "Can't hear a thing."

"Here, let me try it," he suggested.

She stepped aside so he could lean over nearly double and put his ear to the keyhole, dignity forgotten.

"You're right," he concluded finally. "I can't even make out a murmur."

A woman cleared her voice behind them loudly. They jumped and spun around.

"Nakanawa-san," he said, and Uchida could have sworn he blushed slightly.

"Yuka-chan I'd expect this from," the maid said sternly, hand on hip, holding a basket of freshly-folded laundry with the other arm. "But you! How old are you anyway?"

"Ah, well, I was uh—" he began.

"Nevermind," she interrupted, sweeping her free arm outward. They blinked.

Her expression softened.

"Do you have any idea what this is about?" she asked.

They shook their heads no.

"Everyone is in a tizzy," she explained. "Supposedly Yo-chan called and sent the Boss into quite a state. No one had ever seen her so distressed! Then she shut herself in her office. I saw her myself; I've seen statues look less frozen."

Uchida and Arisawa shared a look. Arisawa made a questioning gesture to her with one eye.

"No, she didn't call home before she got to the restaurant," Uchida said, shaking her head. "She didn't call anyone, in fact. They must be wrong about who it is."

Then to Nakanawa:

"I was with her the whole time. She didn't call anyone. It couldn't have been her."

Nakanawa tilted her head.

"But it was obviously her! It sounded like…"

Her voice trailed off.

"Listening in on the private line, huh?" Arisawa queried archly, eyebrow raised.

"Not me!" the maid insisted. "Though he did say Yo-chan's voice sounded off…"

Uchida and the chauffeur exchanged glances. Finally, Nakanawa shrugged elaborately.

"We'll find out eventually," she said, bowing slightly, and strode off.

They waited until she was out of earshot.

"Well, that's interesting," Arisawa said.

"I wonder—" Uchida began, but realized she was hearing what sounded like yelling through the door.

They immediately lurched back over, the both of them leaning over to listen again. This time the voices came through, though garbled.

"You have to! It's…to do! You know that! It's…"

A woman's voice, palpably full of despair.

"All my life, I…gotten for it?...Absolutely nothing! It was…my goddamn time!"

Yoshino's voice, angrier than Uchida had ever heard her.

Then, a moment later, a loud crash, the sound of something shattering.

She looked at Arisawa, eyes wide, and saw that he was shocked as well. An unspoken message flickered between their eyes, and they stood up. Arisawa grabbed the doorknob.

The door hurled open, and Arisawa barely managed to avoid falling, using the doorjamb to break his tumble. Uchida stepped aside instinctively, then tried to step back into the doorway.

Uchida barely noticed being shoved roughly aside, barely felt her back hitting the wall with a thud. Instead she was staring in shock at Yoshino's face in profile. Fury, disgust, hatred and, above all, pain, were written there, as if she held an antipathy to the world and everyone within it.

It was an expression whose approximant Uchida had only seen once before, on the day they met.

Then the moment ended, her hand instinctively moving up to rub her chest where she had been struck. Her eyes followed Yoshino's flight down the hall, past Nakanawa flattening herself against the wall, laundry basket on the floor, and to her room, whose twin doors closed with resounding slams, one after the other.

Uchida's head snapped back around, past Arisawa getting back on his feet, to Yoshino's mother-of-sorts, who looked absolutely horrified, hands to her mouth, a shattered lamp at her feet.

Then Uchida turned on her heel and followed Yoshino's trajectory down the hall.

Her attempt to turn the door handle failed—_of course, locked_—and her fist almost reached the door panel before she restrained herself.

_No_, she thought. _She'll want time before I go banging on the door. I should respect that._

_But…_

Uchida lingered in front of the door, indecisive.

_The side door!_ she realized.

She pulled open the door at the end of the hallway, glided past the dual spiral staircases, and flung open the double door leading to Yoshino's office—or study room, rather—and thus indirectly into her room.

Well-acquainted with the house, she turned immediately and reached for the handle to the connecting door. Irrationally, it seemed less obtrusive to walk in than to bang on the door, and she didn't hesitate.

It was locked. Yoshino had been thorough.

She leaned against the door, deflated, the events of the past few minutes catching up to her. Yoshino the reliable, that was how she had always thought of her. Yoshino the dependable.

_What could it be? _she thought. _She's never—_

No, she realized. That wasn't true. There had been a time, long ago, when Yoshino had relied on her for support, and she had given it.

That thought firmed her resolve, and she stood up straight, nodding to herself. She would wait. Yoshino would come out eventually, and then they could talk.

Someone grabbed her shoulder.

"I have a key," Yoshino's mother said gently, looking down at her. "But let's wait a little."

"What's going on?" Uchida asked pleadingly, but the woman shook her head.

"I'll let her tell you, if she wants to," she said.

Uchida felt a chill. The woman's voice was slightly strained.

They stood there, each lost in their own thoughts, for agonizing minutes, until the woman, acting on some internal cue, stepped forward, drawing a metal key out of her pocket.

They found Yoshino lying on her bed, staring straight up at the ceiling, hair disheveled and wet with sweat. The sheets were complete disarray, and her numerous pillows scattered haphazardly over the surface and on the floor.

She seemed exhausted, but looked up at their entrance.

"Interesting door to choose," she said, smiling drily, sitting up slowly.

Her demeanor mobilized every ounce of sympathy Uchida had, and she ran forward, dropping any pretence of normalcy. No need to pretend anything at a time like this.

"What's wrong?" she demanded, stopping herself in front of Yoshino and looking her in the face. "What's going on?"

Yoshino looked back at her, and Uchida realized that something was seriously wrong. Those eyes were full of pain, not just for things which had already happened, but for something she was about to do.

Her heart quavered.

"You didn't tell her?" Yoshino asked, avoiding Uchida's eyes to look inquiringly at her head servant.

"No," the woman said, looking from one girl to the other with obvious concern. "I thought it wouldn't be appropriate."

Yoshino didn't respond, looking down at her hands.

Uchida's breath caught in her throat. Never would Yoshino hesitate to tell her anything.

Or so she had thought. But clearly she was wrong.

She could see the thoughts flitting across Yoshino's face, the great gears of her mind turning. It was a process which had always impressed and fascinated her, but not now—now it tore at her.

"I—" she began—anything to break the silence.

"No," Yoshino said decisively, shaking her head. "I can't. I won't involve you. It's not your problem."

Yoshino looked up and, viewing the message in her eyes, Uchida stepped backward involuntarily. The message there was terrible, and the effect of Yoshino's words on her was completely disproportionate to how much she had said.

_What is this?_ she thought, mind spinning.

She swallowed resolutely. She was overreacting.

"But I want to help," she argued. "If you don't want to tell me, that's fine, of course, but I want to—"

"I said no!" Yoshino snapped. "Stay out of this! It's not your business!"

Her face twisted in anger, hot and terrible, but Uchida had known her long enough to know when she was faking it. This was displaced anger, anger at something else, redirected at her.

It still made her knees weak. She recoiled in shock.

"Why—why would you say something like that?" she asked, still reasonable. "We can just talk. I mean, I—"

"Get out!" Yoshino snarled. "Can't you tell when you're not wanted? It's not your business; it's mine. Get out and go home. It's been fun, but I don't want to talk to you."

Uchida looked at her, overwhelmed. What was this?

"W—why?" Uchida squeaked out, realizing suddenly that she was on the verge of crying. "Why are you angry? What have I done to you? Why are you doing this? What's _going on?_"

Yoshino tore her gaze away from her, but Uchida still read the pain and guilt that glimmered across her features.

_What is this?_ Uchida wanted to scream. _Why is she doing this to us?_

"I—I came because I wanted to help," she choked out. "And you—you—"

Yoshino's mother swooped in, wrapping her arms protectively around Yoshino, no longer wanting to watch the painful tableau.

"If she doesn't want to talk," she said, now seated next to the girl, voice held stern and steady by an iron will. "Then we have to respect that. Maybe you should go home."

She watched Uchida levelly. It was not a suggestion.

She felt as if she had been stabbed in the chest.

She stepped forward, tears in her eyes.

"How—"

"I'm sorry!" Yoshino said, looking her again in the eyes, the anger gone. As Uchida had thought, it was never really there to start with.

"I'm sorry," Yoshino said. "It's for the best. I'm…"

Her voice trailed off, and she again looked away.

"I don't believe that!" Uchida insisted, stepping forward. "I can't—"

"Have Arisawa drive you home," Yoshino interrupted quietly but firmly. "Go home. I think it's better if we pretended none of this ever happened. Wouldn't that be pretty nice? Just forget you were ever here."

"I can't do that!" Uchida replied incredulously. "How could I possibly—"

"Do it anyway!" Yoshino ordered, gaze sharp and serious. "If you can't, then it's better if we didn't talk at all, if we weren't friends at all! Do you understand what I'm saying? You—do not—need—to—know."

Uchida looked at her in shocked disbelief. Her mouth worked, but no words came out. This—this was too much for her to say.

Then Arisawa put his hand on her shoulder, appearing out of thin air.

"Come along," he said sadly. "There's nothing you can do."

Uchida turned around and stormed out, as Yoshino had done before, heedless of Arisawa matching her speed and following her to the carport, opening the door to the car for her, starting the engine, driving them out of the building.

"What is this?" she asked out loud to no one, eyes unseeing, the tears finally starting to trail down her cheeks. "Who did this? Why is this happening? Why won't she let me _help_ her?"

Arisawa provided no answers.

* * *

She didn't even bother to hide her depression. She stumbled out of the car, ignored Arisawa's farewell, opened the front door by pure muscle memory, skipped the nearly mandatory ritual of announcing that she was home, shuffled listlessly past her inquiring mother, and shut herself in her room.

Glancing at her homework, which lay unfinished on her desk, she was filled with a feeling of almost total loathing. Impossible.

She dropped face first into her bed. There she stayed, staring straight at the wall, her wheels of thought completely halted. She was too weary to attempt the risky task of thinking, but was not actually physically tired, rendering her unable to sleep. It was as if she were in some kind of stasis.

There Uchida lay until, nearly two hours later by her bedside clock, a knock sounded on her door.

She thought about refusing, but said:

"Go ahead."

The door opened slightly, her mother sidling in. Uchida looked up at her, then went back to staring at the wall.

She heard the door shut and the sound of footsteps approaching.

The bed creaked and shifted her mother's weight, but Uchida still didn't move.

She felt a hand on her back.

"Come on, Yuka," the woman said. "It's not like you to be like this. What's wrong?"

She said nothing. Maybe, if she stayed quiet long enough, she wouldn't have to say anything.

"I know that kind of behavior," her mother said. "Is it a boy?"

Uchida shifted. She couldn't let an assumption like that go unrefuted, no matter how little she wanted to talk.

"No, of course not," she said emptily, still not getting up. "Why would you think that?"

"Well, I just thought, this kind of behavior…" her mother began, her voice trailing off.

Uchida refused to say any more.

"Is it Yoshino-chan?" her mother asked, a moment later, recalibrating her expectations.

She still kept silent, but realized that she had closed her eyes shut, forcing back any betraying tears. Her expression would betray her, she realized, and a few tears were threatening to burst out anyway.

"A fight?"

She didn't want to think about it. Why was her mother insisting on talking about it? She just wanted to be left alone.

"Look, everyone has fights every once in a while," the voice above her said. "Just because you guys have never had a big one doesn't mean it's the end of the world if you have one. It will work out. Just think about what happened, work out a solution, and apologize. I'm sure she's miserable too."

"She won't even talk about it!" Uchida finally snapped, turning herself half over to look her mother in the face. "I can tell she's suffering, but she won't tell me! That's the worst part."

She buried her face in her pillow.

"I can't understand what she's doing. First she's angry, then she's sad. None of it makes sense! You know what she said? She said I should just pretend nothing happened, and if I couldn't, then it would better if we weren't friends. How could she say that? The two of us…"

She looked up, and she knew her eyes, looking back at her mother's wary face, must be full of anguish, but still she had to say it, one more time, the thoughts that echoed endlessly in her mind.

"I don't understand," she finished, feeling the emotion welling up again, grabbing the woman's arm and burying her face in her chest. "What could have done this?"

"I—" her mother began, moving her hand to pat her daughter on the head, trying to think of what was proper to say. But she was at a loss for words. That her little girl should suffer so, that her daughter, so similar to her that it made her heart throb, should have a problem she couldn't solve, one for which she couldn't provide a pat answer like "work harder next time" or "I'll talk to your teacher"…

_It had to happen someday_, she thought with a pang of sadness.

She worked through the situation in her mind as best she could.

"In my experience," she began again, swallowing covertly, "if she's saying something like that, it's because she doesn't want her problems to worry others. She's trying to protect you. That has to be it. She doesn't seem like to the type to do something like this for any other reason."

"Fine job she's doing," Uchida protested, head still buried. "I'm still miserable."

"Yes, it's funny how that works," her mother said, and Uchida could hear her voice resonate in her chest, and the sigh that followed.

"I never had a friend as close to me as she is to you," she said. "I don't really understand how the two of you work. Is it worth it to challenge her on this? Must you know all her problems?"

"Yes!" Uchida insisted, pushing her away and glaring at her, eyes full of betrayal. "How could you even ask that?"

"She won't tell you for a reason," her mother said, parsing her words carefully. "And she says she's even willing to stop being your friend if you push too much. Whatever it is, she must think it's even _worse_ for you to know. Do you really want to force your way in?"

Uchida looked down at the floor.

"I can't leave her to face this alone," she said quietly. "I don't care what it is. I won't abandon her. I don't care what she says."

Her mother looked at the ceiling. What else could she say?

"What does she mean to you, Yuka? Is she worth it?"

"Of course!" Uchida responded instantly.

They looked at each other.

"I'll be here if you need me," her mother said, finally, getting up. "I'll leave you alone. Dinner is at seven like usual. Promise me you'll come eat. That's all I ask for now."

Uchida nodded, once, and the woman left, looking back at her one last time before closing the door again.

She lay back down, staring out her window this time, at the tree branches outside.

All of that, and only one sentence had really resonated with her. Only one line really demanded an answer.

_What does she mean to me?_

* * *

Uchida's mother strode out into the living room, looking and feeling greatly perturbed.

"So, were you right?" her husband asked, not glancing up from his magazine.

"No, I wasn't," she said, voice distracted, sitting down in the chair across from him. "You were right after all. It was Yoshino-chan."

"You see?" he said, folding his magazine up for storage. "You always make weird assumptions, when in the end it's nothing but—"

He stopped, looking up and seeing the stricken look on her face.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "Is it that bad?"

"Maybe," she said, looking off into empty space.

He waited for more, but she said nothing.

"Well?" he asked, more insistently, leaning forward in the couch. "What kind of answer is "maybe"? She's my daughter too, you know."

"It's just, I had a reason for thinking what I did," she said, glancing at him. "And no, it's not because I'm obsessive. I got over that years ago."

"So you say," he observed drily.

"I'm serious!" she insisted, leaning forward to give him a focused, serious stare. "I was just thinking back to when I was about her age. The only times I ever moped about like that was when I was turned down by a boy I liked, so I thought it was the same thing."

"But it wasn't," he finished.

"No," she agreed, lapsing back into a contemplative silence.

He looked at her expectantly, but again she said nothing. She wasn't being secretive, he realized. She simply had too much to think about to be paying much attention to him, which was a little aggravating. Sure, she was home more often, and he had never personally had the experience of being a teenage girl, but that didn't mean his opinions were worthless!

Or so he hoped.

"Well?" he prompted.

"Hmm?" she responded, having lost track of the conversation.

"Oh, come on! Let me do something here!" he said. "I was the one who said she had a fight with Yoshino-chan, after all. I was right, wasn't I? I think I deserve to be involved in your thoughts here."

She looked at him, and visibly laid her thoughts aside for the moment, her face losing its pensive quality.

"Something really strange has happened to Yoshino-chan," she said, succinctly, "and she's so worried refuses to tell Yuka what's going on, so much that she even threatened to stop being friends, if Yuka tries too hard to ask. It's making Yuka miserable, but it seems it's really serious. I don't know if it's really as big a deal as Yoshino-chan thinks it is, but you know how it is at their age."

She paused.

"Though if it really is that bad, then I don't know what to say. It seems like the kind of thing that might break a friendship. I can't even imagine what it's like to lose a friend like that, and I don't know what I can even do. She's old enough that I don't think I can really involve myself too much."

He thought for a moment, then cleared his throat, broaching the topic carefully.

"This might seem off-topic, but do you remember what I was saying the other day, about how it was good thing they're both girls?"

"Yes," she said, her attention refocusing on him. "What of it?"

"Well, I was lying a little," he said, looking away from her. "For the sake of the conversation. Actually, I've always thought things would be easier if Yoshino-chan were male."

"What?" she asked, incredulous, her attention definitely on him now. "That's ridiculous! If that were true, then—"

"I know, I know," he said, holding up a hand to forestall her questions. "But think about how perfectly everything would work out. Imagine if Yoshino-chan really were her _boy_friend. Could you really disapprove? Does well in school, level-headed and reliable, compatible personalities…"

She thought about it, finger on her chin.

"No, I guess I really couldn't," she said finally. "Honestly, I'd probably be all for it, secretly."

"Yes," he agreed. "Not to mention the money…"

He regretted mentioning it even before he finished speaking, but it was too late.

She looked at him askance.

"I can't believe you just said that," she reproved, eyebrow raised.

"Well, it's not a big deal," he backpedaled. "But it's still true, and it's definitely a factor—"

"I'm just going to pretend I didn't hear anything," she said. "To think I married a crass man like that—"

"Look, I'm just pointing out the facts," he defended, hands up in a gesture of harmlessness. "I'm not saying it's a good reason. I'm just saying."

"What does this have to do with anything, anyway?" she inquired, no longer as amiable as she was before. "I can't believe I let you drag me to random topic like this!"

"What I'm saying is," he explained. "If all of that were true, and they were a couple, and then something like this happened, what would you do? What would you say?"

She gave him a strange look, but settled down and gave it serious thought. Suddenly, comprehension dawned in her eyes.

"I'd say this fictional male Yoshino-kun is being stupid," she said. "And that Yuka definitely deserves to know, whatever it is. I'd say he's being disrespectful of her abilities, to think he needed to protect her. I'd advise Yuka to talk to him and set him straight, however much yelling it'd involve."

He nodded slightly.

"Just so. They're so close, a couple is the best comparison, right? And we do have experience with that."

She looked at him wondrously, and he felt a warm glow. So, after all these years, he still had the ability to impress his wife. The eyes reminded him of when he had first met her, when she had been so innocent, and he would try all sorts of tricks to look cool in front of her and, miraculously, it would actually work.

"Well," he said, feeling a little happy. "I wish I could say I came up with that on the spot, but actually I've been thinking about it for a while."

She squinted at him quizzically.

"What? Why?"

"Well, you know, like I said, she's my daughter too."

It wasn't really an answer, but she didn't press on, too busy with the revelations of the new way of looking at things. He could see it in her eyes.

"Though they're not really a couple," she said out loud. "So it can't be exactly like that. I can't tell her to force Yoshino-chan to tell her, but I can tell her to strongly encourage it."

"Something like that," he agreed, nodding.

He watched her as she continued to think.

"You want to talk to her again?" he asked, when she finally got up.

"Yes," she said simply.

"I could talk to her too, you know," he pointed out, starting to get up himself. "I've been thinking—"

"No," she flatly refused, already walking. "It's a mother-daughter thing."

"Of course," he conceded amiably, sitting back down.

In her excitement to leave, her elbow hit the vase next to her chair, sending it wobbling dangerously. He flinched—but she spun around and caught it in her hands.

"You see?" he said, smiling. "Between you and her, this is why we can't have nice things."

She turned to narrow her eyes at him, forgetting temporarily the excitement of the moment.

"I'll let that slide today," she said. "But next time—well you know how it works."

He just smiled, and she left in a huff.

_She's so easy to needle_, he thought. _Just like Yuka._

_And she doesn't think things through to their logical conclusion._

He sat there, alone with his thoughts.

* * *

Uchida sighed, realizing she stood no chance of falling asleep anytime soon.

She glanced at her window, and the ghostly light of the night filtering in through her blinds.

Both her parents and her relatives always made it a point to talk about how similar she was to her mother, but personally she didn't buy it. Her mother had burst back in, positively bubbly to dispense some new advice for her. It hadn't been too hard to extract from the woman what line of thought had produced this new revelation.

Honestly, thinking of her and Yoshino as some sort of alternate-universe couple. What would she come up with next? Uchida doubted she was ever as foolish as that.

Still, she had to admit that the sheer energy of delivery had been enough to shake her from her stupor. Her mother's new advice had been good, and closely matched what she was going to do anyway. But, now that she thought about it, one of the things her mother had said disturbed her.

What did she need to force Yoshino to tell her? She had assumed she needed to, as a matter of course, but others disagreed. Not Yoshino's mother, not Arisawa, and obviously not Yoshino herself. They all thought it might be better for her if she didn't know. Why the difference of opinion? What was Yoshino to her, if she needed to know that badly?

She shook her head slightly, and turned over in her bed. Not for the first time, she missed having someone there. It seemed strangely empty.

What would her parents think, if she admitted something like that?

She looked at her hand, monochromatic in the darkness, and a part of her mind relaxed.

If she was going to be truly honest to herself, her mother had not been all that foolish. If Yoshino were male, and they were this close, she would not hesitate to call her a boyfriend…and then there was the matter of the alcohol.

It was a silly little game they did, that was all, and neither of them could remember a thing of what happened. That was part of the charm.

Except that was not entirely true, and it was exactly this kind of nighttime tableau that would remind her of that.

It was never anything definite, just strange flitters of memory appearing randomly. A hand on a pillow, a sock on the floor, the strangest things would remind her of something, and a similar image would flash by in her mind. They were all connected somehow; she was sure of it.

And the eyes. Yoshino's eyes, far larger, and thus closer, then seemed normal. Those same eyes, full of determination, looking down at her. Those same eyes, anticipating something, watching her intently.

Why would she remember things like that?

It was disquieting, and thinking back to the very first time, what had happened in the morning…

She had always ignored it. It wasn't important. It was just her imagination playing tricks on her.

But those were excuses, weren't they? Something about Yoshino's demeanor suggested she really did not want to talk about what happened on those nights, and so Uchida never asked, and never even thought about it, out of a strange respect. But if they couldn't remember, what was Yoshino afraid of? What was _Uchida _afraid of?

Did she want to know?

_What does she mean to you?_ her mother had said.

No, her mother had disavowed that sentence.

But she was still right. Uchida had answered confidently that whatever Yoshino was going through, she wanted to share in it. She believed in that fully.

But what did that mean? Why had a question like her mother's struck such a chord?

_She's my friend_, she thought. _My best friend._

This past day had been one of the most painful in her life.

_So what? That's to be expected._

_But even friends have their limits. If a friend has a private matter, one she doesn't want others to know about, then it's not your business. Why are you prying?_

Yet it wasn't proper for her to not know. It was her _right_ to know. That, she knew with exceeding conviction.

_But then…_

She closed her eyes.

Regarding the previous matter, with the alcohol…it was no longer a matter of whether she wanted to know. She _needed_ to know. She had to clarify every aspect of their friendship. She had to understand why she believed Yoshino's business _was_ her business, why she needed to know. And if she couldn't…then it wasn't really her business at all.

She had to start thinking. Yoshino wasn't here to do the thinking for her.

She glanced at her computer, quiet and dark for the night. She had gone online earlier, after finishing her homework, in the vain hope that, perhaps, Yoshino would want to talk about it. Of course not.

It would be a long night.

* * *

Uchida made a half-hearted effort to peer down the street, hoping that among the amorphous shapes of cars approaching from a great distance, she would be able to spot the one she wanted. But minute after minute had passed with no sign of the car. Yoshino wasn't coming.

It was tradition. Never one to flaunt her wealth by showing up at the school entrance, Yoshino had early on settled on meeting her every day on this very street corner to complete the walk to school. Anything for a bit of extra time together.

Yet what was tradition at a time like this? Nothing, it seemed.

Uchida shivered in the cold and turned away, eyes dim. She hadn't really thought Yoshino would show up, but she had stayed to look, ever-hopeful. But hope, too, was nothing, it seemed.

She slung her bag over her shoulder and started to walk wearily down the sidewalk. Despite how little sleep she had gotten, she was grateful for school, today. It gave neither of them any excuses; they would have to look each other in the face, whether they wanted to or not.

Uchida started to sigh—and her head snapped around automatically at the sound of a horn blaring behind her.

She found herself looking right into the eyes of the girl she was looking for, standing five feet away, next to her iconic black vehicle.

She wondered what her face looked like. Confused, perhaps. Happy, perhaps.

But it she was expecting a tearful reunion, she was sorely disappointed. Instead of running forward, Yoshino instead turned her head slightly and nodded at the car's shaded window.

As the car drove off, Yoshino stepped forward, and Uchida opened her mouth to speak, not even knowing yet what she was going to say—

Yoshino grabbed her shoulder, surprising her into silence, but said nothing. Instead, Yoshino kept walking, grinding melted chunks of snow underfoot.

"We're going to be late," Yoshino said blandly. "Let's go."

For a long moment, Uchida watched her back, trying to think of what to do, what to say.

She still didn't dare.

Finally, she started to follow, walking quickly to catch up. Despite everything, despite the silence, it meant something that Yoshino had shown up.

That'd have to do for now.

* * *

Uchida spent two full periods glancing at Yoshino more or less constantly, covertly watching the uncharacteristic expressions on her face. She was usually the model student, always managing to look studious and attentive, but now…she looked bored and annoyed, as if her reason for caring had evaporated.

Uchida wasn't the only one who noticed. People around Yoshino had stirred uneasily when she first arrived, then hurriedly looked away when she gave each of them a pointed glare. They still glanced at her occasionally, Makoto especially, sensing that she was unhappy, but Uchida hoped they would ascribe it to an unusually foul mood

The first true sign of trouble came in third period math. It was their teacher's practice to have students do problems on the board to completion, as much as possible, then have everyone discuss it, and Touma had been cursed with the poor luck to be picked first.

Hardly had she started when Yoshino said quite loudly:

"That's incorrect."

Everyone looked at her, surprised. Her face, rather than showing the amiable countenance of a peer trying to be helpful, showed the dark expression of someone impatient to get on with it.

"That factor has multiplicity two," she said, voice hardly charitable. "So you have to make a fraction for each of the possible powers. This was in the reading."

"Ah, yes, right," Touma said nervously, unwilling to admit that she hadn't done said reading.

And a few minutes later:

"Minami-san, remember, form Ax+B, one less than the power of the irreducible form."

"No, no, since it's degree two on the bottom, it's degree one on top, so Ax+B. I wasn't talking about two separate fractions."

"Minami-san, there's no need to write a negative there. I mean, you could, but that'd just make things needlessly complicated."

Or, most bluntly:

"C=4, not 2. Check your algebra."

When Touma was finally done, she was visibly sweating, her performance having gotten worse and worse with the pressure. No one said a word about the problem, since there was nothing left to critique, and she returned to her seat a bit of a nervous wreck, shooting looks at Yoshino—and at Uchida.

This performance was repeated once more, and Yoshino was halfway through with a third student when the teacher, visibly distressed by the need to berate a star pupil, belted out abruptly:

"Yoshino-san, please, we know you know the material, give someone else a chance to look at the problem. Please."

—whereupon Yoshino spent the rest of the period staring pointedly out the window, refusing to participate.

Uchida had spent the whole time in visible agony, chewing her lip. What on earth was Yoshino doing? She was alienating everyone, and though Uchida's concern was for Yoshino, not herself, she caught quite a few awkward, beseeching glances in her direction. For better or worse, they were linked in the minds of their classmates.

"What is she doing?" Makoto asked, showing up at her desk during the brief break between periods. He placed his hands on the table and leaned forward. "You've got to talk to her. Touma isn't sure whether to be angry or worried, but she's certainly not going to say anything. Not while you're here to do it for her."

"You think I don't know that?" Uchida snapped, surprised at how much tension she had stored up. "What do you want me to do? Yell at her in front of the whole class? We're not telepathically linked!"

As she spoke, she thrust herself further and further forward, until she was essentially standing, forcing Makoto back into a desk in the next row. Everyone within earshot—which was nearly half the room—had leaned at least slightly in their direction.

"Leave me alone," she finished, sitting back down and lapsing into a sulky silence.

It felt good being angry, because anger meant she didn't have to think about anything else. She maintained the anger into the next period, English, the class now possessing two focal points of disquiet—Uchida, sitting next to the door with an expression of icy fury, and Yoshino, next to the window, coldly correcting the grammar errors of the first student to walk to the board to try and discuss the possible responses in a simple conversation.

"_Very good_," the English teacher said, in English of course, as the unfortunate victim return to his seat. Blasé as always, she hardly seemed to realize anything was wrong.

"_Miss Uchida_," she said. "_Why don't you go next?_"

Uchida's carefully maintained angry glare shattered instantly, replaced by a look of shock and confusion. A murmur of inartfully-concealed whispering began in earnest. They all knew the old woman was clueless sometimes, but _this_ clueless?

She stood up, managing not to appear shaky, and stalked up the row of desks.

Grabbing a marker, she turned and faced the class, her eyes landing on Yoshino's now-ashen face.

_You're the one who started it_, she thought. _Now reap what you sow._

Except she had no idea what that meant. Would Yoshino correct her mistakes like she did the others? Would she stay silent? What did it mean either way?

She realized suddenly that the instructor's voice, next to her, had gone silent, and that she hadn't heard a single word she had said.

The marker shook in her hand, and she couldn't see anything but Yoshino's face.

"I—I'm sorry," she said, tearing her eyes away by the simple expedience of turning her whole body to the right. "Could you repeat that?

_No, shit!_ She thought.

Besides starting all students on English earlier than was standard, their school also had a policy of immersion language learning—one she had completely failed to follow. The blood rushed to her face, and the marker shook more violently.

"_I—I am—_" she began, struggling to drag the proper English apology out of her now-addled brain.

"Here," the teacher said wryly, in perfect Japanese, handing her the book of fake conversations she had been reading out of, and Uchida realized that the woman had not been clueless at all. It was her way of defusing the situation, by attacking what she as viewed as the problem point-blank.

She took the small parchment book in her hand and turned back to face the class, the words on the page blurring in her vision. She couldn't _focus_, not after all of that, not with all of them watching her breathlessly, not with Yoshino's now-panicky eyes on her. The girl looked down, trying to help her, but it did nothing. Her throat felt tight, and the longer she stood there, the worse the pressure got.

By then the book was visibly shaking in her hand, and the realization that they could all see that helped not at all.

"_I can't do it_," she said, and how she managed to construct the English sentence in that situation, she would never know.

She turned, bowed abruptly, shoved the book back, and said in stuttering Japanese:

"I'm sorry—I'm not—not feeling well. Nurse's office. I need to go."

"Uchida-san!" the teacher said, moving to try and intercept her, realizing she had underestimated the situation and stepped in a land mine.

Uchida placed the marker back next to the whiteboard and strode out of the room with rigid steps, mind focused exclusively on maintaining composure. It'd be okay. She could just say she had the flu. It'd be okay.

As long as she kept her thought processes frozen, she could continue believing that.

* * *

Lying down on a sheltered, curtained bed in the nurse's office wasn't all bad. She had quite a bit of sleep to catch up on, and despite everything, she was finally exhausted enough to do it. Though going to the nurse's office to sleep…

She drowsed there, under the soft glow of fluorescent lights viewed through thin fabric. The nurse hadn't questioned her; instead, she had just pointed straight at a bed. Thankfully, there was no one else there to see Uchida's expression.

She wondered how many students passed through here with the equivalent of a nervous breakdown. Probably quite a few, she guessed. One heard stories.

The door to the room slid open, and there was the brief sound of muted conversation, further muffled by the curtains around her.

She sighed. She was taking up space here. She would have gotten up to go back, but it was almost lunch, and…she didn't want to face any of them. Not now.

The curtain shielding her from the rest of the room slid along its rails, allowing the now-blinding glow of the lights in. She saw the silhouetted figure and sat up instantly, alert.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded, more harshly than she intended, now that the initial edge of anger had worn off.

Yoshino closed the curtain again with a movement of her arm, shrouding them both in renewed twilight. Then, she dropped two bags on the floor, one hers, and one Uchida's.

"I was dismissed," she said. "Right after you left, actually. The both of us are being sent home for the day. To clear our heads, she said."

Uchida was grateful for the news—she definitely wanted to go home—but said nothing, continuing to watch her friend warily.

"I'm sorry about that," Yoshino said, looking to the side.

"You'd better be!" Uchida shot back instantly. "What the hell was that? Are you stupid? No, you're not stupid, which is why I'd like to know why you were being such an idiot!"

She opened her mouth to say more, but clamped it shut, remembering where she was.

"She's not here," Yoshino said, gesturing with her head in the direction of the nurse's chair, invisible behind the curtain. "She left when I asked. Apparently, this kind of thing happens all the time."

She smiled wryly.

"Though I believe we just triggered a flag inside our health records," she added.

"Who cares about that?" Uchida exclaimed. "Answer the question!"

Again Yoshino dodged her look. Yoshino started to reach for her, then seemed to change her mind.

"I said I'm sorry," Yoshino said quietly. "I didn't think it'd affect you that much. I certainly didn't expect her to call you up like that."

"Of course it would!" Uchida said, pointing at her with her finger. "Have you lost your mind? Are you not thinking at all anymore?"

Yoshino still didn't look at her, but Uchida saw her bite her lip, an extremely rare gesture.

"It's just so hard—" Yoshino began, but stopped abruptly, with a slight shake of her head.

"So hard what?" Uchida asked, getting up out of the bed, caught in the unfamiliar position of interrogator. "So hard to keep treating me like this? So hard to keep acting a selfish baka-yaro?"

The harsh insult had lost its power among their circle of friends, due to Chiaki's abuse of the phrase, but she used it entirely seriously—that was clear from her voice.

Yoshino cringed, and turned bodily away.

_Why won't she look at me?_ Uchida thought.

"It won't happen again," Yoshino said, still quiet. "I apologize."

"No, you listen to me," Uchida said, finally standing up and grabbing the other girl by the arm, trying to turn her back around.

Yoshino flinched as if struck, but turned around, backing against the curtains. Her face looked confused, almost embarrassed, but the expression was concealed in an instant.

Another memory flashed across Uchida's mind. The same look of embarrassment, but in a different context, happier—

Uchida swallowed whatever it was and continued.

"Have you considered how thoughtless you're being, doing this? I told you I want to know—what could possibly be worth _this_?"

"I can't tell you," Yoshino said quietly, and instead of sounding self-assured, or angry, or determined, she sounded scared and meek.

Uchida looked at her and found that Yoshino looked shocked, meeting her eyes accidentally. The girl looked hastily away, and Uchida realized that it had not been an intentional phrase—it had slipped out.

"I can't tell you," she repeated, voice firmer, but turning to hide her expression. "It's not your business."

"If you can't handle it, then it is my business!" she said, almost shouting. "And you're not looking like you can handle it!"

Yoshino visibly stiffened, and Uchida stopped, hoping for a breakthrough, that Yoshino was giving in. She held her breath.

"I understand," Yoshino said, dashing her hopes, voice carrying some ineffable _quality_ that suggested she was back in control. "I told you: it won't happen again. That should be enough."

"No it's not!" Uchida said lamely, knowing the moment was over.

"I'm going home," Yoshino proclaimed, bending down to pick up her bag.

She flung aside the curtain and strode toward the door.

Reacting a few seconds later, Uchida ran forward to chase her down, lurching forward to grab her arm just in front of the door.

It was a miscalculation, there was something on the floor—

_Goddamn it, I'm so clumsy—_ she had time to think.

They collided into each other, and Yoshino stumbled, bracing herself against the door, which slid open unhelpfully. Yoshino caught the door handle with both hands, trying to stabilize, her back turning towards the ground, and they would have fallen into the open space had Uchida not successfully caught the wall with one hand and Yoshino's back with the other.

There they stayed for a moment, looking at each other, Yoshino still holding the dangerously creaking door with both hands, the position unfamiliar due to Yoshino's superior height. Uchida strained to pull Yoshino back up and, against all odds, found herself blushing.

_What the hell?_ she thought, then noticed Yoshino wearing a similar expression.

A moment later, with an adroit half-jump, Yoshino put herself back in a standing position, spun around, and marched away.

"Hey! Wait!" Uchida yelled, reaching for her, already knowing it was futile.

She stood there for a moment, one hand on the wall, then sighed and straightened out of her half-crouch, smoothing her hair with her free hand.

And then she realized they had an audience.

She turned around, and beheld the nurse standing there with a girl next to her, the two of them wearing identical expressions of wide-eyed surprise. The girl, with an obvious cold, was holding a tissue in one hand, having completely forgotten about the snot now dripping out of her nose. Clearly, the nurse had asked her to wait outside with her, out of respect for the students inside.

Uchida groaned out loud.

_Chiaki. Of course it's goddamn Chiaki. The only one of them not in my class, and of course she has to be right here to see it._

Well, technically speaking, Shuuichi wasn't in her class either, but that guy didn't count.

She summoned up every ounce of dignity she had, walked back into the room, picked up her bag lying on the floor, and strode back out calmly.

Chiaki was now wearing a narrow-eyed, inquisitive expression, if a little sleepy and sick-looking.

"Uchida—" she began.

_Oh, to hell with it_, Uchida thought.

She ran.

* * *

She had obtained two key insights from the experience.

Firstly, she had obtained a half-passable reason to justify her demands that Yoshino talk to her. She could not reasonably be expected to remain unaffected by what was happening to Yoshino; therefore, it was her business.

Secondly, whatever memories she had that were being triggered, Yoshino definitely shared at least some of it. And whatever it was, it was embarrassing.

The image in her mind's eye had clarified substantially, and what she saw…resembled what she had recognized long ago as the natural conclusion, but one she had rejected as definitely incorrect, and that Yoshino had agreed with her was definitely incorrect.

On what grounds had they made that judgment? Nothing solid, she now saw.

She turned in the bed, facing the ceiling, allowing her hair, now free, to spread itself over the pillow. Her hair was frazzled with sweat, and she lay there exhausted.

Her mother had been waiting for her at the door, having been told to expect her by a call from her school, but Uchida had been in no mood to explain herself, eat, or do anything but sleep still wearing her uniform, plopping herself onto her bed, a piece of furniture which was starting to become distressingly familiar.

The beady eyes of the stuffed horses she so treasured watched her, and, at that moment, they seemed rather intrusive.

_What am I waiting for?_ she thought. _Why can't I sleep?_

She feared she had an answer, and inside that answer, another suggestive riddle. Why would she even think of that? She had no source of such an idea…that she could remember.

She looked at one of the larger stuffed animals, the one which Yoshino had won her only recently. The girl was remarkably skilled at the strangest things, but Uchida took comfort in the fact that, try as Yoshino might, she had never come remotely close to touching Uchida's skills at trick shots. That, and sand castles.

Well, it was something.

She grabbed it, and hugged it close to her chest, using it to replace what she suddenly felt as an aching lack of _presence_.

_What's happening to me?_ she thought.

It was her last waking thought.

* * *

_"Yuka!"_

_She sat bolt upright, startled._

Mom! _Uchida thought. _What is she doing here?

_Instinctively, she grabbed the nearest region of the blanket and held it in front of her, but try as she might, she couldn't spot where the woman was. Next to her, Yoshino sat up._

_Then she felt hands on her shoulders, shaking her—_

"Yuka!"

Her eyes snapped open, and she found herself looking into her mother's face.

"What is it?" she asked grouchily, shifting in her bed, trying to stretch. She felt the extreme annoyance that came from being woken from a pleasant dream, even if one couldn't remember the exact contents.

"Your friends came to visit you," the woman said, looking both displeased and worried. "The least you could do is greet them. One of them looks sicker than you do."

"You didn't have to wake her," Touma commented, sticking her head into the doorway.

"It's unseemly for her to be sleeping now, anyway," her mother said as Uchida sat up blearily. "I mean, it's not good for her health. Or for her skin. You want another breakout, hmm?"

Uchida was too weakened to do anything but glare sharply at her mother for the unnecessary comment. On the rare occasions she took long naps, they made her feel horrible—but she loved them all the same.

Nodding in satisfaction, her mother excused herself and left as Touma and Chiaki filtered in, the former making it a point to close the door behind her.

Uchida's hair must look horrible, she knew, but there was nothing to be done about that now. Still, she reached up and rubbed it down as best she could.

They took up positions, Chiaki perching herself on the desk chair to watch her with piercing eyes, and Touma sitting cross-legged on her bed, her bulky frame awkward.

Uchida knew what this was.

_It's too much to hope that they haven't talked to each other_, she thought.

She looked around at the two of them, and asked the obvious question:

"Only the two of you?"

Touma gave a half-smile.

"I asked him not to come."

"You didn't have to come either," Uchida said politely, secretly wishing they hadn't. "I'm sure you have practice, and it's not like I'm actually sick, unlike—"

She glanced meaningfully at Chiaki, who was in the process of wiping her nose on a tissue she had obtained from Uchida's nose.

"No, I'm fine," Chiaki said, sounding hoarse. "It's not that bad."

"You're easier to get to than Yoshino, for what it's worth," Chiaki added. "I tried calling her, but she made it pretty clear she didn't want to talk about it."

Uchida thought she heard a glimmer of displeasure in Chiaki's voice, but then again, the girl always sounded a little displeased.

"We don't want you to feel pressured into saying anything," Touma said, looking at Uchida. "Just…you two are okay, right?"

"I was surprised," Chiaki said, pausing to clear her sinuses. "I mean, I was surprised to see you two there. You two made up, then? It was kind of hard to tell, honestly."

Uchida blushed irrepressibly. She knew what they thought. Of course they would think that; they always had. It made sense that they would.

"No, it's not—it wasn't what it looked like," she said, with much less conviction than she had managed on previous occasions. She was finding it harder to dispute them now.

"Of course," Touma said diplomatically. "But that was quite a fight to have, right in the middle of class. You did have a fight, then?"

"Something like that," Uchida said, looking at her stuffed animals.

"And it's okay now?" Touma pressed.

Uchida studied one of her horses for a moment longer.

"No, not really," she said quietly.

She looked up and saw the two of them share a look across the bed, trying to decide by mutual consensus what to say. She decided to preempt them.

"Do you guys mind if I ask you a question?" she said.

Again they looked at each other.

"Go ahead," Touma said, finally.

"How would you describe the two of us? You know, our friendship."

Chiaki and Touma looked at her queerly, before sharing yet a third look. Chiaki made a gesture with her hands, ceding to Touma the unenviable role of speaker.

Touma cleared her throat, putting her fist in front of her mouth, obviously buying time to think.

"Well, I—I, uh, guess I'd analogize you guys to the two ends of a magnetic dipole."

Chiaki suppressed a laugh, triggering a fit of coughing. Touma looked at her, unsure whether to glare at her for the laugh or show sympathy for the cough.

"A dipole," Uchida repeated skeptically, suddenly wondering if it really was a good idea to ask them.

"Yes!" Touma insisted, face slightly red, but sticking firmly to her hasty metaphor. "You see, one end of a dipole cannot exist without the other. One is never found without the other, and they depend on each other to exist."

"Unless they finally find one of those elusive magnetic monopoles," Chiaki interjected, keeping her face as straight as possible.

"Will you let me finish?" Touma demanded, turning to glare at Chiaki again. "I don't see you volunteering to do this!"

Chiaki shrugged and looked nonchalant, but Uchida had been around her to know that she was secretly enjoying Touma's discomfiture.

"Anyway," Touma said, turning back to her. "You two are like that. She's rational, mostly reserved, and likes toying with people. You're impulsive, outgoing and happy, and, uh…"

"Get toyed around with a lot," Chiaki finished."Though not in a bad way or anything like that."

Touma again glanced at her reproachfully, before turning back.

"That's probably the best I'm going to do," Touma said. "But it's true. The dichotomy of your two personalities started breaking down the moment you two had a fight. I've never seen Yoshino act so stupid, and I've never seen you so angry. That's how I knew what must have happened. It didn't match either of your personalities. It was pretty shocking. I—"

She paused to consider her next sentence, looking slightly embarrassed.

"If you two were to really stop being friends, I'd lose a little of my faith in the world. But that won't happen, right?"

Touma looked at Uchida until Uchida, finally, shook her head slightly.

"Of course not," she said quietly.

There was a long moment of silence as they watched her.

"Anything else to add?" Chiaki asked, sniffing, directing the question to Touma.

"No, I'm going to stop there," she said.

"I knew my vocabulary lessons would pay off," Chiaki commented.

Uchida sat there thinking. She couldn't believe she was about to ask this, and of them of all people! But who else? Her mother?

_I need to know._

"Can I ask you another question?" she said suddenly. "It's a…a little weird."

Touma frowned.

"Weird?" she asked. "Well, I've seen plenty of weird in my life."

Uchida made it a point to look straight at her wall for this next one.

"So, you know, hypothetically, I was wondering, if I were the kind of girl who'd be, er, attractive. To other girls. Since, well—I'm curious! And you might know."

It was finally too much, so she planted her glowing red face straight into the wall in question to hide her expression.

In the background, Touma made a choking noise—then, a long silence, which bothered her.

"Well?" she asked, not shifting her position. "I asked, so—"

"I, for one, have never considered the issue," she heard Chiaki say, and Uchida could almost picture her crossing her arms haughtily and looking away disdainfully.

Touma cleared her throat.

"Well, frankly," she said. "You're not bad-looking. Some people like short, and you've got the, uh, assets, which I must say—stop looking at me like that!"

After yet another long silence, Uchida finally moved her face from the wall, overwhelmed by curiosity, to see Chiaki and Touma glaring at each other like hawks.

She barely stifled a laugh, but they heard it.

They turned their eyes back towards her.

She looked back at Touma, feeling strangely bereft of embarrassment. Maybe she had tripped some sort of emotional circuit-breaker.

"It's good to finally hear you admit it," Touma said.

"It's hypothetical!" she insisted.

"Oh, of course," Touma said patronizingly, not even pretending to believe it.

"It's not just stuff like that," Chiaki said. "Don't let Touma's shallowness give you any wrong ideas."

Uchida turned to look at her.

"There's also personality and stuff," Chiaki said, resolutely ignoring Touma's glare at her. "Though I admit you two probably have compatibility in spades."

"Don't just start talking about us like that!" Uchida protested. "I told you it was hypothetical!"

Touma grabbed her shoulder and stared her in the eye.

"Uchida," she said. "Let's be honest here. Maybe we're wrong, and you two are truly platonic, but the very fact that you'd ask, and you'd choose us to ask—maybe it's not as platonic as you think, hmm? At least not for you. Is that the problem you two are having? As you may have guessed, Chiaki described the whole nurse's office thing to me in fairly good detail."

Uchida looked down. Sure, it really had been an accident, but that was almost beside the point now.

"No, I don't think it's exactly like that, but…I don't know," she said. "It's not what started it, as far as I know. But ever since this started, it feels so strange to be without her, if that makes sense. And I keep thinking…"

Her voice trailed off. How could she explain all of it?

"I keep thinking of the strangest things," she finished. "Like this. I can't shake it. And I keep having the strange—"

She stopped, a giant reservoir of mortification rising up out of nowhere. Was she really going to talk about that? She couldn't talk about _that_. It was too much.

She struggled for breath, feeling the heat radiating from her face.

Touma shifted, but Uchida held up a hand to forestall her from offering help.

She looked up, tugging at her collar for air.

"Well, that's what it is," she managed to squeak out.

Touma looked at her warily, as if wondering if she would explode or if instead steam would vent from her ears.

"You don't have to talk about it," Touma said lamely. "Just, I thought, maybe I could—"

"Let's change topics," Chiaki interrupted, her voice as scratchy as ever. "For one thing, can I get a cup of water from somewhere?"

"M-Mom should have already brought something," she said, suddenly perplexed, her face cooling. "Where is she? I—I'll get her!"

Before they had a chance to protest, she jumped out of bed and ran out of her room, flinging her door open, leaving them blinking in her wake.

"Are you girls done?" her mother asked, when she emerged into the living room. On the coffee table was a prepared tray of rice snacks and tea.

She nodded stiffly, bending down to pick up the tray.

"Yuka," her mother said meaningfully.

She stood up and looked at the woman.

"Do you want me to try calling?" her mother asked, looking at her with concern. "You know, calling Yoshino's, uh, guardian? I could try to help. We can't have you missing school over this."

The moment the day before replayed itself in front of Uchida's eyes: Yoshino closing herself off, her servant telling her to go home.

Uchida's hands shook, and the teacups rattled in their dishes.

"No, it's fine," she said. "I'd rather you not."

Her mother nodded insincerely, openly torn over what to do—and incidentally worried about Uchida dropping the tray.

With an abrupt motion, Uchida turned and stalked back down the hall, not giving her mother a chance to say any more.

* * *

"Hello?"

The voice on the other end of the line sounded cautious and distracted.

"Riko-san? It's Uchida," she said, just in case. They'd exchanged numbers once, a long time ago but she wasn't sure if Riko had stored it.

"I'm sorry if I'm interrupting something," Uchida added. "I can call later."

Uchida glanced behind her nervously. Her door was closed, and she was using the cordless phone, but she couldn't shake the paranoia that her parents might hear her.

"No, no it's fine," Riko said. "It's good to hear from you. It's been a while."

There a brief silence, during which Uchida could feel Riko puzzling over what this was about. Sure, they had talked a couple of times, but only when circumstances brought them together. The phone number exchange had been a polite formalism. The girl probably didn't expect her to ever actually _call_.

"So what brings this call?" Riko asked, masking whatever surprise she might have felt. "Have some amazingly juicy piece of gossip for me? Or do you want to ask about high school?"

She sounded playful, as if she had decided that the call must be about a topic as pleasant as that.

Uchida took a breath.

Uchida had always found her surprisingly friendly and easy to speak to, for someone three years her senior—and, just as importantly, not as crazy as Kana.

And who else could she turn to? Certainly not her mother. And she had already tried Chiaki and Touma. For whatever it was worth, Riko was effectively an outsider—maybe she could talk to her.

_Am I really this desperate?_ she thought.

"I called because I wanted to ask some, uh, advice," she said, bluntly truthful. "I don't think I can talk to anyone else."

She heard RIko inhale.

"Well, alright. Sure. Go ahead," Riko said, sounding wary and pleased. "Wow, I never thought I'd ever be in a position to have a kouhai asking me questions."

Uchida thought through what she was going to say one more time.

"So I have these two friends, A-san and B-san…" she began, feeling lame already.

"Uh-huh?" Riko prompted.

"And so, uh, recently, they've gotten in the habit of, uh, drinking occasionally, for fun—"

"Wait, wait, back up," Riko interrupted. "How old are these friends again?"

"They're my age," Uchida said. "But that's not—"

"Well, I think I see the problem already," Riko interrupted again, voice serious.

"No, no, I know," Uchida said, cheeks reddening despite the lack of a physical audience. "But that's not it. Not directly."

"Hold on, we're not talking about Kana's sister, are we?" Riko asked. "Because if so, I'd, uh, be—"

"No, no, definitely not," Uchida insisted. This conversation was getting seriously off-track, and the last thing she needed was for Riko to say something misguided to Kana.

"Please, that's not it," Uchida said. "And it has nothing to do with Chiaki. Let me finish."

"Well…alright, continue," Riko said, sounding skeptical.

"The thing is…they recently had a big fight because B-san is keeping something serious from A-san, and won't reveal what it is. And now they can barely talk to each other. A-san is really torn up about it."

Uchida stopped for a long moment.

"And she asked me for advice," Uchida added. "And I don't know what to say."

_No! Why would I say that? That just makes me sound suspicious!_

"O—okay," Riko responded cautiously. "Well, it's hard for me to say anything too specific, but I would say—"

"No wait, wait!" Uchida interrupted, privately cursing herself. "That's not it! Not the main thing! The real issue is that, uh, A-san has recently started to suspect that, during their drinking sessions, certain, er, well, things have been going on that…she can't remember. You know, things."

There was a dead silence on the other end of the line.

Uchida suddenly realized she had left out an important detail.

Riko spoke again, voice now carrying the traces of anger and shock.

"Obviously I made a bad assumption," Riko said, voice dangerous. "I thought we were talking about two girls. But do you mean to tell me, that this guy B-san, got her drunk and—"

"No, no, you don't understand!" Uchida interrupted hastily. "They _are_ both girls!"

Her tongue tripped on the last few syllables as she realized what she was saying. She hoped Riko hadn't noticed.

This silence was even longer than the last one. Much longer.

Uchida shifted nervously, leaning back in her chair.

Finally, Riko chuckled drily.

"And I thought this would be a relaxing conversation," she said. "Is this girl sure?"

"Not—not entirely," Uchida said. "But she says she has good circumstantial evidence."

"Has this A-san considered that maybe the thing B-san won't talk about is exactly this?" Riko asked. "Maybe she's realized and won't talk. That's the obvious answer."

Uchida's eyes snapped wide open.

_I can't believe I didn't think of that!_

She shook her head.

No, it was a false realization. If that was what it was, then what was that whole spectacle with Yoshino talking with her servant, and the supposed phone call?

But it made sense—so much sense that it startled her.

"She doesn't—that is, I don't know," Uchida said, containing her surprise. "I never asked. But I don't think so."

"Then that's one thing to definitely think about," Riko suggested. "More broadly…"

Uchida waited as Riko collected her thoughts.

"I'd say A-san needs to get B-san isolated somehow, and force the issue," Riko said. "Perhaps by talking about it, but I'm not sure. It depends so much on whether that really _is_ it. Personally, I suspect it is."

Again, Riko paused to consider

"If you ask me about the whole, uh, two girls thing," Riko continued. "Well, if it were a couple of years ago, I would have said something sentimental about love and how they should just go for it. Now, I—I don't know. From an objective standpoint, it's not a good idea at all. Well, maybe only for a few years, I don't know…"

She paused, having sounded almost world-weary.

"I'm sorry I'm not more helpful," Riko said, voice genuinely unhappy with herself. "I'm really not prepared for this. Well, I can definitely say A-san should think about it more carefully. And might want to make extra sure, just in case."

"No, that's alright," Uchida said. "That's—that's fine."

"Well," Riko added. "I guess…I guess if it's about Yoshino-san, it might be a good idea to talk to Keiko. Those two seemed pretty into it last time they talked. Who knows?"

A long pause, as Uchida felt the blood again rush to her face in mortification, realizing what Riko had just said. She had to say something, insist to Riko that she was wrong, but Uchida couldn't make her mouth move.

And then it was too late. The long silence would tell Riko all she needed to know.

"Wait, shit, I didn't mean to admit—" Riko blurted out, breaking the silence, giving Uchida the irrational urge to hang up then and there. Somehow she persevered, her hand clenching the receiver with such force it shook.

"I'm—I'm so sorry," Riko apologized, a moment later.

Uchida still said nothing.

Riko chuckled nervously, clearly unnerved by the silence.

"It's just—well, I mean, seriously, _A-san_? That's the oldest one in the book. Who would believe that? I—I just didn't—look, I won't tell anyone, okay? I'll be totally reliable. Uchida-chan, come on, talk to me!"

Now Riko sounded desperate.

"No, it's okay," Uchida said quietly. "I guess it was a little stupid of me to think that would work."

She added her own nervous chuckle to the awkward conversation.

"I, well…"

She let her voice trail off.

"I'm sorry I couldn't be more helpful," Riko said. "And remember what I said about the alcohol. It's really not a good idea. For reasons such as this."

"No, you were plenty helpful," Uchida said, and meant it, dodging the second topic. "And I'll—I'll call Keiko-san. Do you have her number?"

"Oh, sure!" Riko said, relieved to have an escape route offered to her. "Give me a moment…"

A few minutes later, Uchida hung up, pushing the lighted green button on the handset.

Well, it had been edifying after all, even if she had murdered her reputation with Riko in the process.

She looked at the receiver in her hand, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach at the prospect of another phone call. But she had to perform due diligence.

She dialed the number she had been given, leaning on her elbows onto her desk.

"Hello?"

The voice at the other end of the line was again cautious and this time Uchida knew for certain that its owner had no idea who was calling.

"Hi, Keiko-san," she said, as casually as she could manage. "This is Uchida. I don't know if you remember me. I'm one of Kana's sister's friends."

"Ah, yes, Uchida-chan, of course, I remember you," Keiko said.

Uchida waited for Keiko to say more, perhaps ask why she was calling, but the girl said nothing.

"So, uh, how are you?" Uchida asked when the silence finally became too awkward.

"Oh, I'm good, I'm good," Keiko responded. "How about you?"

"Good, I guess," Uchida said.

Uchida waited again.

"So, um…why are you calling?" Keiko asked, finally.

Uchida remembered how meek the girl was, and how strange she had found it that Yoshino and her had formed a rapport, however brief. Maybe that was why she was so unresponsive.

"Ah, well, I was..." Uchida began, then stopped to take a breath.

She repeated the story she had told earlier, except not masking the names, and greatly abbreviated, leaving out the parts she thought Keiko didn't need to know. More accurately, despite all the extra words she used, her entire description could be summarized by asserting that she and Yoshino had gotten into a fight because Yoshino wouldn't tell her what horrible thing was going on.

"So I talked to Riko-san," she finished, "and she said that you might be able to guess what it is."

Uchida waited while Keiko breathed into the receiver.

"I don't know why Riko-chan would say that," Keiko replied, finally. "I barely speak to her, and we're not all that similar…"

"I see…" Uchida responded, disappointed. "Well, thanks any—"

"Though as a matter of fact," Keiko continued. "She did call me right after school. I was thinking what a coincidence it was that both of you would call me on the same day."

Uchida's eyes widened. Paydirt. Riko knew what she was talking about after all.

"What did she ask about?" Uchida asked, trying not to make it sound like a demand.

"Nothing unusual," Keiko said, slowly. "Just talk, about school, and the news. The most unusual part of it is that she would call at all. She never has, before."

Uchida could hear the slight perplexity in Keiko's voice.

"I thought that she sounded a little stressed," Keiko added. "I even asked her about it, but she said she was just tired. I guess it makes sense now."

"Do you have any idea why she would call?" Uchida asked, hoping to extract more useful information out of the conversation.

"Well," Keiko began, before stopping.

"Let me think about it," she requested, a moment later.

Uchida waited impatiently.

"Yoshino-chan is an interesting girl," Keiko said, carefully. "It's hard to explain, but I've never met one as intelligent as her. Chiaki-chan studies hard, and gets similar grades, but it's not quite the same. It comes naturally to her, like it does to me. We had a lot of fun talking."

Uchida blinked.

"Really?" she asked.

"I don't know though," Keiko continued, brushing past her rhetorical question. "The impression I always got was that she wasn't too happy about it. Besides that…well, I guess the way to put it is that, personally, I've always been happy to just be the smartest girl in class, but I get the feeling she wants something else."

She paused.

"I'm sorry," Keiko said. "I think I'm getting sidetracked. The point is, I think she just wanted to talk."

Keiko paused again.

"I'm telling you this in confidence," she said, "Given your position, I think it might be useful. I…well, the fact is, the first time we really talked, she told me that she felt lonely, and it was good to have someone to talk to. Yes, I think that's how she put it. Well—"

Uchida realized she was holding her breath, and forced herself to breathe. She felt as if she had been struck by lightning, and she didn't yet have any idea why.

"Lonely?" she asked, interrupting Keiko, who was still talking.

"Well, yes," Keiko said. "She was quite serious. She seemed unhappy about it, but I told her it was normal. It happens to all of us, especially when you're not too similar to your peers. I'll be honest, I feel it sometimes too. Kana-chan and Riko-chan aren't that much like me. But it shouldn't be a big deal. Still, it was pretty personal, and I'm not sure she'd like me sharing it. I just think…"

A parade of observations flooded Uchida's mind. Yoshino, too brilliant to relate to her peers' struggles with school, too intellectual to genuinely share their interests in video games, or soccer, or TV. Yoshino, isolated by her wealth from her peers, with only a skeleton of a family to go home to, when everyone else she knew had sisters, brothers, parents…

"It's quite a big deal," Uchida said, voice emotionless.

"You think so?" Keiko asked curiously. "It's pretty common—Ah, hold on—"

A brief silence as Keiko did something.

"I'm sorry," Keiko said, returning to the line. "She's calling me again. I'll put you on hold."

_Again?_

"I—It's fine," Uchida said shakily. "Go ahead."

Silence.

Uchida regarded the phone in her hand.

_Lonely?_ she thought. _But why? I'm here for her! I thought..._

Unbidden, an old memory surfaced.

The first time Uchida had ever seen Yoshino, all those years ago, she had been silent and angry, rebuffing all of Uchida's attempts to talk to her.

And then…

Uchida had been there to see Yoshino blast her chief servant with a tantrum the likes of which she had never seen. In retrospect, Uchida had been struck by the eloquence of her speech, had realized that she had never met a girl her age who talked like that.

At the time, she had been struck instead by the sheer amount of pain and hatred that had poured out of the girl. Pieces of it flashed by her mind's eye.

_"I just want to be normal," _Yoshino had said.

_"That's all I want! Do you think I want to be the only one in my class with no parents? They're not even dead!"_

_"I'm sorry I can't get along with them! I'm sorry they make fun of me for knowing how to speak properly and read books and not watching TV! I'm goddamn sorry!" _

Uchida remembered the face she had seen, so much hurt, so much self-hatred, the core emotions bared for her to see.

She had never understood why it had affected her so strongly, but that night, she hadn't been able to sleep, thinking of that face. It was the first night she had ever laid awake.

The next day, she had laced together her most versatile pair of shoes, asked for directions, and did perhaps the most fool-hardy thing she had ever done. She was a six-year-old, hiking her way up a series of barely-used hiking trails, up one of the most imposing hills in the area.

She had been so happy when she finally got the girl to start talking to her, and even happier the first time she got her to smile back.

It was miraculous, how quickly Yoshino had turned around. By the end of that summer, she had difficulty remembering what Yoshino had even been like before. Yoshino had become so different, and it had been deeply gratifying to think that all it had taken was for Uchida to show her some kindness.

Even now, thinking about it made her feel powerful and, more importantly, happy with herself, as if she had made a difference. She had never realized before, how much that meant to her.

_I wanted her to be happy_, Uchida thought. _I couldn't stand the idea of someone like her hurting so much. I wanted to heal her and protect her; that's why I stuck around. I wanted someone to rely on me. And I thought she was happy._

Over the years, to all appearances, the relationship had reversed, until it was Yoshino protecting her, and though Uchida had always remained watchful, she had been satisfied in a job well done. She had succeeded.

Or so she thought.

_"I just want to be normal," _Yoshino had said.

Uchida hurled the phone towards her bed, the receiver bouncing against the bed and clattering against the wall, thankfully undamaged.

Uchida looked at it, breathing heavily.

_What the hell have I been doing? So conceited to think I could keep her happy, when I couldn't even notice something as simple as that._

_She's been hiding it from me all these years_, Uchida thought.

"Hello?"

Keiko's voice, garbled by distance, emanating from the receiver on her bed.

Uchida dived for it and put it to her ear.

"Yes, yes, I'm here," she said hurriedly.

"Ah, Uchida-chan," Keiko said. "I, uh, well, where were we? Well, I don't really know what to say. Yoshino-chan must be pretty distressed, to keep calling me like that. I'm sorry, but I can't really guess what's going on with her. If I'm not being too forward, though, I'd recommend you call and apologize, even if you think you did nothing wrong. That usually works."

Uchida shook her head, almost amused. If only it were that easy.

Suddenly, a surge of irrational anger washed through her. That anyone could speak about it so carelessly….

She swallowed her anger. It wasn't Keiko's fault that Uchida hadn't told her enough to know how bad it was.

"Well, if she calls again," Uchida said. "You can tell her I'm sorry for not noticing. In those exact words."

"Not noticing?" Keiko repeated back as a question. "Not noticing what?"

"No, nevermind," Uchida amended. "I'll tell her myself."

"That usually works better," Keiko agreed. "I'm sorry I couldn't be more helpful."

Uchida thanked her and hung up.

They had both been more helpful than they could have possibly imagined.

* * *

That night, she sat in front of her outdated but serviceable computer, musing on what to do.

Yoshino wasn't online, of course. She had given up on that.

She glanced warily behind her. She wished her door had a lock. Still, though, it was closed, and this was far past the time when her parents would typically sleep. Plus, her lights were off, and anyone would think she was already asleep. She was as safe as she would ever get.

Not that she was doing anything particularly distasteful. It was just a little expedition into Wikipedia to confirm a few facts, that was all. She'd just rather not be interrupted.

An hour or so of morbid fascination later, she finally stopped clicking, leaning back into her wooden chair, feeling as if she had dealt a death blow to whatever remained of her innocence.

However, while she had learned quite a few things, it was what she already knew that bothered her. As she suspected, she knew far more than she should, and caught herself on several occasions frowning at inaccurate details in the articles.

This was not knowledge she could have acquired from mere osmosis.

_It's no longer possible to deny, is it?_

She leaned her elbows onto her desk, cradling her head in both her hands, trying to process the ramifications.

Her screen eventually flickered into a screensaver, but she didn't notice.

Uchida realized that she was far more shocked by the implications of the fact than by the fact itself. That is, she felt as if she should have been first been shocked by the revelation itself, and only then moved on to worrying about talking to Yoshino and so forth. Instead, she seemed to have skipped the first step entirely.

She reflected on what she had thought about Chiaki and Touma, what she had said, what she had done, the lines of thought she had followed. She had been preparing for this eventuality for a long time, she realized, reaching the necessary conclusions and building the necessary cognitive architecture to accommodate it when it came, just in case it did. But why? How? Instinct? Secret knowledge?

Now that the event was here, then, there was no agonized thought, no desperate self-denials. Instead, beliefs, conclusions, self-resolve flowed smoothly into place with all the precision of plans laid long ago.

All except in one aspect, the one she had no plans for, having not until now realized it would be a problem.

_How to hell am I supposed to tell her?_ she thought despairingly, eyes staring into the computer monitor as if somewhere in the text an answer would appear.

_How can we possibly deal with this? _she thought. _How? I don't have a clue!_

_We…we—_

Her mouth quirked. It really was "_we_", wasn't it?

She had thought of them as "we" for so many years it was entirely natural, but this…this was different.

She stared at her desk.

Holmes and Watson. _Boke_ and _Tsukkomi_. That was the way it was supposed to be.

It wasn't how it had turned out.

Eventually, her monitor flickered off, plunging her into darkness, but she continued to sit in silence.

She needed to think.


	3. Storming the Gate

Most of the next day passed without incident.

Yoshino had clamped down on her strange behavior, as promised. Now, superficially, it was impossible to tell that anything was wrong.

Superficially, and only to an outsider.

They didn't speak that morning, or at any point throughout their classes, even though Uchida didn't bother to hide the fact that she was watching her the whole time.

Others in the class made no secret of their curiosity, either, but no one tried asking her, or Yoshino, just what had happened yesterday. Instead, they confined their questions to Yoshino and Uchida's proxies in the class, the increasingly hassled-looking duo of Makoto and Touma.

It felt lonely, as if she were somehow isolated from the rest of the class, as if she and Yoshino were lost in their own microcosm.

Her default expression was now a combination of sullen watchfulness and thoughtfulness. However, any of their classmates who might have been watching her—and by now, Uchida refused to spend the energy to check around her—would have been perplexed by the way it kept switching to one that looked like she was choking on something, which was actually a result of her working hard to keep her face straight.

More bits and pieces of flotsam were floating back to the surface of her memory, and these were much less innocuous than those she had recovered before. It was almost as if they had been waiting for the opportunity.

If she still had any doubt, it was virtually annihilated now.

Their English teacher looked seriously relieved to see them both back and healthy-looking, and the old woman even called on the two of them several times, as if to test the proposition. They seemed fine.

During lunch, the lunch they had both missed yesterday, they congregated at one table as always. But despite Yoshino's now seemingly baseline behavior, it was impossible to paper over the lack of camaraderie. The emotional closeness was not there, and they couldn't fake it. It didn't help that everyone else there was on watch for exactly something like this. Conversation proceeded in fits and starts, if at all.

The two of them sat farther apart than was normal, even for most people. Uchida wondered if Yoshino really suspected, somewhere in that endless mind of hers.

She needed time alone with her. This enforced contact was useless if they were constantly surrounded by people. She had to isolate Yoshino somewhere, but how? It was a tough question.

Uchida found it painfully appropriate that she had to keep reminding herself that she couldn't ask the brilliant Yoshino, the clever Yoshino, to think of a plan for her.

By the end of the day, sitting at her desk alone in the classroom, she had determined that there was nothing left but to bite the bullet and ask point-blank.

She nodded to herself with the thought. In that case, it would be best if she went and did it now. She had procrastinated earlier, knowing that Yoshino had student council obligations to attend to on Tuesdays. If she waited any longer, however, the meeting would end and Yoshino would go home, and she would miss her chance.

Last year, the "Captain" had abandoned most of her involvement with council activities, dropping her seemingly unstoppable bid to become President by third year. In Yoshino's own words:

_"It's not worth it. It's taking up too much of my time and, frankly, I'd rather be spending my time with you guys."_

Or with Uchida, rather.

Uchida thought about that.

Well, regardless, the hour-long Tuesday meetings were now Yoshino's only commitment, reflecting her now greatly diminished role as a mere class representative. It was the bare minimum necessary for her to stay in contact with the others, which was all she needed to wield a considerable amount of influence. Favors, apparently.

And the hour was almost up.

Uchida packed up the homework she had been desultorily working on, closing the folder and dropping it into her bag. She got to her feet, stretched and, since the classroom was empty of people who might see her, took a moment to scratch herself on the back.

She turned, arm still contorted up the back of her shirt, and found that she had made a bad assumption.

Makoto, apparently also in the process of packing, was pointedly looking down into his bag, a slightly embarrassed look on his face.

_Oh please_, she thought. People took this kind of thing entirely too seriously.

She frowned, picking up her bag. When had she become so blasé about this sort of thing?

"What are you doing still here?" she inquired, walking over to look down on the seated boy. It made her feel sort of good knowing someone who was as short as she was, and male, at that.

He looked up, a little chagrined.

"Well, we were thinking that, maybe what the two of you need is some sort of mediator. I was supposed to pitch the idea you right after school, but since you seemed to be sticking around, I figured…"

He spoke without bothering to define "we" or "the two of you", but Uchida didn't need any hints.

"And they chose you," she said drolly.

He shrugged, making a seemingly indifferent expression.

"Apparently, I'm 'unintimidating'," he explained.

She smirked, but was then surprised to see him swallow nervously.

He stood up, opening and closing his hands, obviously suppressing an impulse to grab her to emphasize his point.

"This can't go on longer," he said, eyes exactly level with hers, darkly serious. "There's no reason you two should be this unhappy with each other. If all you need is someone to stand there and keep watch, then I'll gladly do that. No—I'd insist on it. And if you need someone to lock you both in a room…"

Uchida blinked back at him, surprised at his intensity. Her rating of him climbed a few notches. She had always wondered what Chiaki and Touma saw in him.

"I appreciate the offer," she said levelly. "And it can't hurt to have you follow me, but, for your information, I intend to talk to her alone. If you want to help, then chase her down if she tries to run away. Exactly that and no more. You think you can do that?"

"I—" he began, starting to argue.

She watched him. She wasn't budging. It was strictly private.

"Of course," he said, finally.

"Alright, then," she said, smiling drily, slinging her bag back over her right shoulder. "Let's go; we'll miss her if we don't hurry."

She walked down the hallway with Makoto in tow, past empty classrooms and classrooms full of such novelties as a music club and literature club, until they approached the room where council meetings were typically held.

"Quiet today," she commented, more to herself than to Makoto, but he nodded anyway.

It was typically possible to hear at least a loud murmur of discussion through the thin wooden door, but at the moment it was dead silent.

"I wonder if they finished early," she mused out loud.

Before she had even finished the thought, a loud clattering noise pierced through the door, almost as if someone had fallen off a chair.

She exchanged glances with Makoto, who she saw shared her sudden, irrational apprehension. It couldn't possibly have anything to do with—

Then the loud, bass voice of their student council president, so familiar from a hundred school events:

"Yoshino-san, please calm down! It isn't worth it!"

That tore it. Without any regard for decorum, Uchida flung the door open, taking in the scene before her, pouring every detail into her eyes as quickly as possible.

A giant circle of desks, arranged around the classroom that served as the meeting room, with a gap at the door where she now stood. Those seated nearest to her had turned to look at her in surprise, most of them in confusion, some of them in recognition and hope.

Everyone else, however, including the small group of magnates at the front of the room, was busy watching the scene across the room from her, where Yoshino stood facing the wall, arm raised, clearly preparing to strike something below her.

But two separate boys were standing around her, one trying to shove her backwards, and the other restraining her arm with two hands. Implausibly, they seemed to be having difficulty controlling her.

"Let go of me!" Yoshino growled, in a voice which carried all her customary authority and confidence—and which sounded so incredibly alien that it sent shivers down Uchida's back.

Uchida, who had started walking forward without realizing it, finally had the proper angle to see all she needed to see.

A boy lay crumpled on the floor clutching his belly, bruises flowering on the swollen left side of his face, blood streaming out of his nose.

Coupled with the toppled desks and chairs in Yoshino's wake, and the girl actively cowering under a desk next to it, it finally helped register in Uchida's mind exactly what had happened.

And yet that was almost a sidenote. What was more important was the look on Yoshino's face, an expression so twisted by anger and hatred that she hardly recognized it.

_This isn't her! _Uchida thought. _What—what is—_

_No, that's wrong_, she corrected suddenly._ It is her, in every way. It's part of who she is._

The memory flashed before her, such a large epiphany crammed into such a tiny moment.

Ten years ago, in that grotto they loved so much.

"_Why do you hate them so much?"she asked. "Surely if—"_

"_No."_

_Yoshino's face formed itself into a sneer that was dismaying to see on the face of a child._

"_No, they're good only to be despised. If I break their noses, it's better than they deserve."_

_Her tiny hands clenched into fists, her voice dripping with venom. It was simultaneously ridiculous and disturbing in one so young._

_Uchida stared back, at the other girl with wind running through her hair, horrified, appalled, and just a tiny bit frightened._

"_But that's—"_

"_No!" Yoshino insisted, glaring at her with a look that quavered her. "No. I'm not going back. They can never make me."_

_Before she could say anything in response, Yoshino grabbed her by the hands._

"_Trust me," the girl said, eyes burning in their sockets. "I can convince them. We can go to school together. There'd be nothing to stop us. We just have to convince them, and we can do whatever we want. Wouldn't that be grand?"_

_Uchida looked back, and nodded carefully, swallowing._

_She knew instinctively that she shouldn't be letting it go, that she should keep trying to argue—but she was only a child, and no one expected that kind of responsibility from her._

_And it would be grand. That was indisputable._

_So she nodded, reflecting that, after all, she could always come back to this later._

_She nodded because in those eyes she could see not just determination, but _need_, almost desperation. A need for _her_. _

_She could see in those eyes someone who couldn't live without her._

_That was the most intoxicating thing of all._

And she never brought it up again.

She shuddered involuntarily, at the core of darkness in her friend's heart, and the revelation of her own perniciousness.

"Yoshino, stop!" she cried, before realizing what she was doing.

Yoshino, who had been struggling with the now-three people trying to restrain her, froze.

She turned her head to look at Uchida. They watched each other.

"What are you doing?" Uchida demanded. "You promised! Is this what your promises are worth?"

She didn't know what to say, only that she had to stop it, somehow.

With an abrupt gesture, Yoshino shook off the now-limp grip of those around her, breathing heavily.

Uchida's eyes tracked Yoshino as she marshaled some internal source of strength and walked over to Uchida, finally stopping in front of her.

Looking up, Uchida saw self-disgust, anger, embarrassment, and pain.

Yoshino's mouth worked to form words, but no sound came out.

"I'm here. Why won't you talk to me?" Uchida demanded, tears forming in her eyes.

Yoshino tore her eyes away and headed for the door.

"Yoshino!" Uchida protested, trying to grab her arm, but Yoshino shook her off with a rough gesture.

She departed, shoving Makoto to the floor when he tried to interfere. To his credit, he got up and started to follow, clearly intent on trying to pull her back.

Uchida watched this through the door, before starting to walk slowly forward, preparing for a sprint.

"Uchida-san!" the president said sharply.

She turned, shocked. She had forgotten entirely that there was even anyone else in the room.

"I know how you feel," he said. "But please, let her go."

Uchida blinked at him in confusion, then glanced hastily around, her head spinning.

_What have I done?_

They had had the equivalent of a lover's spat in the middle of a meeting of the full student council, a council staffed by people who were, almost by definition, the most socially well-connected and respected students in the school.

She dropped her bag, turning this way and that, looking into their faces, full of pity, and she felt the blood rush to her face once again. She couldn't bear to look, but she was looking. She couldn't mount the energy to run, and her eyes gave the impression of a deer trapped in a car's headlights. Her head felt light.

"Everyone out!" the president demanded, fist slamming the podium. "This meeting is over. You three, pick up that dumbass and carry him to the nurse's office!"

She barely heard him, his voice ringing in her ears as if transmitted from a different world. She caught a blurred glimpse of two girls hurrying for her and couldn't understand why they looked so worried.

That was the last thing she remembered.

* * *

The cold water on her face shocked her awake.

She blinked rapidly, trying to prop herself back up, and found one of the girls helping her up, the other screwing the cap back onto her water bottle, looking satisfied.

"What—" she began.

"You fainted," the first one explained, helping her into a seated position.

"Did I?" Uchida asked, now seated, feeling the dampness on her forehead with one hand. Her brain still felt a little numb.

"It's probably natural, under the circumstances," the girl said, leaning back. She shrugged and smiled amiably, trying to be reassuring.

Uchida looked around. The room was nearly empty now, with the partial exception of the two girls and the student council president looking at her severely, his spectacled face fitting the stereotype almost exactly. The circle of desks was distorted chaotically, with some remaining members half-heartedly returning the desks to their former positions, but most not even bothering. The toppled chair was still toppled.

Showing impeccable timing, Makoto chose that moment to burst back into the room, panting and looking around for Uchida.

"I'm—I'm sorry," he said breathlessly, spotting her. "I couldn't—she kept pushing me away, and I—I didn't know she could run that fast."

It was only then that he realized he was talking to a girl seated on the floor, hair dripping wet, and that all four of them were looking at him queerly.

"Uh—" he began.

"It's okay," Uchida assured him. "It's okay. You tried."

In the period of silence that followed, Uchida thought about what had happened. She could think more clearly now that she was no longer in the heat of the moment.

Not that it was helping very much.

_I—what do I do now? We're going to be pariahs in this school!_

_No, don't think about that. That's not the important thing. Focus._

"Are you okay, Uchida-san?" the president inquired, startling her out of her reverie.

"Oh, yes. Yes," she said, jumping up onto her feet.

_First I have to deal with this._

"I'm so sorry for everything," she said, bowing. "I'll leave, and I'll talk to her, and we'll get everything—"

"I want to speak to you in private," he interrupted. "About Yoshino-san, if it's not too much to ask. You need to know a few things."

Uchida blinked in surprise.

"I—what?" she began.

"Do you really think this is a good idea?" one of the girls asked, eying the president warily.

"I hope so," he said.

He turned to address her.

"Uchida-san, I just want to stop you from doing anything rash. Yoshino's state of mind is of paramount importance to the functioning of this council. That is why I must speak to you. You can't operate on incomplete information."

Uchida exchanged looks with the two girls, then with Makoto. They were at a consensus: None of them had any idea what was going on, but there was nothing wrong with finding out.

"Alright," Uchida conceded.

"Then we'll be leaving," the second girl said, pausing to look at Uchida carefully for a moment.

"Take care," she said finally, walking out with the other one.

"Thank you," Uchida replied to their backs, genuinely grateful.

"I'll be waiting outside," Makoto added, turning to go as well.

"You can go home," Uchida pointed out.

Makoto looked at her.

"I don't think so," he said, finally. "It's…well, I just don't think…"

He stopped, searching for the right words.

"Alright," Uchida said, turning toward him, arms crossed. "Go ahead. You don't have to explain yourself. Just don't plan on walking me home or anything like that."

Makoto looked at her quizzically, clearly having planned exactly that.

"Why not?" he asked.

_He really is clueless sometimes…_

Uchida cleared her throat and began making vague gestures with her hands.

"I'm just saying it might be a little suspicious to certain people, since you know, it's not commonly done, especially not between those of opposing genders—"

She stopped, knowing she had achieved the desired effect when Makoto blushed beet-red.

"I—I was just trying to be nice," he stammered, flustered. "I forgot—I really didn't think—I wasn't—"

"Of course not," Uchida reassured, thinking how funny it was that the only person in the school who blushed as much as her was a guy.

"But appearance is everything," she lectured, leaning forward. "_We_ know, and _they_ know, that it doesn't mean anything like that, but what would anyone else think? What if someone saw us? The last thing we want to do is start a stupid rumor like that."

He nodded curtly, speechless, and turned on his heel to head out the door, sliding it closed behind him.

Uchida sighed, letting out a breath. It was a bit rich of her to be lecturing Makoto on social awareness barely fifteen minutes after she and Yoshino had humiliated themselves in front of the student council.

"It's so tiresome, isn't it, keeping up appearances?" the president of said council asked, reminding her of his presence.

She turned to look at him.

"It really is sometimes," she responded, carefully.

"Yoshino-san would certainly agree," he added, pushing up his glasses with one hand. "If she were being honest, that is."

Uchida raised her eyebrow, surprised by the unexpected reference to Yoshino.

"What?" she asked.

"She's a politician," he explained. "And like all of us, she often has to pretend to be something she's not. It can be wearing. She must be under a great deal of stress, to explode like that."

He paused.

"Though maybe you've never noticed," he added. "I wager she acts more authentically around you than around anyone else."

"What are you talking about?" she asked, confused by the lack of context in what he was saying. "What? Do you know her that well?"

"Ah, I 'm sorry," he said, waving his hands awkwardly. "I'm rambling. Without a prepared speech, I just go way off-course."

Uchida looked at him with an air of annoyance. He was wasting her time with this? He really was much better at giving speeches.

"Look," he said, sensing her unhappiness. "I'm just trying to explain what happened here. Forgive me, but I'm going to have to go into a bit of back-story."

He looked at her inquiringly, and she signaled for him to continue.

"First off, you need to know that I never would have gotten the votes for this position without her support. I don't know how much attention you paid attention to the whole thing, but I was the underdog newbie, facing the well-groomed veteran."

He looked slightly embarrassed.

"She supported me, you know that? Even though it made no sense for her. She said it was because I was the better person, not a fake like the others, and that because of that, I'd be better for the position than anyone, including herself. She convinced me to run and gave the votes to make it."

"She said that?" Uchida said, catching the implication. "She said she was a fake?"

"Yes," he replied, looking uncomfortable. "At the time, I didn't fully understand, but I think I do now. It's so easy to get so caught up playing power games, trying to maximize your own support, that you forget that you're theoretically supposed to be improving the lives of students."

He paused, then cleared his throat.

"She told me that I was the right choice because I still cared, whereas she had realized she was only doing it for her ego."

Uchida stayed silent. She had never considered carefully why Yoshino had chosen to join the student council. Yoshino was the obvious candidate for class representative, and Uchida had always assumed it had happenednaturally.

In retrospect, though, Yoshino had indeed made a serious attempt to push herself forward, and had never satisfactorily explained her motivations. Not that she was obligated to tell Uchida everything about everything but…it seemed a bit strange, looking back.

But, _ego?_

"Anyway," the boy said. "The point is, when she stepped aside, everyone expected her to support the next-in-line. It surprised everyone when she chose me instead. He never forgave her."

He coughed.

"The point is, of course, that he was the one you saw on the floor just now."

Uchida's eyes widened slightly in understanding, and she nodded for him to continue. She was starting to see the outlines of what had happened.

"He's always nursed a grudge," the boy said. "We all could see it, and he's spent the whole year trying to take her down a notch."

He shifted nervously, the aura of authority now gone, now just an ordinary second-year student.

"It's been pretty clear that Yoshino-san hasn't been with it these past couple of days. We've all heard the rumors. He spent the whole meeting trying to provoke her, so that she would make herself look stupid in front of everyone, and lose support. Well, I guess he got his wish."

Uchida's eyes narrowed as she thought over the situation.

"Don't tell me he won with a maneuver like that," she growled, finally.

She paused, clenching and unclenching her hands.

"But he did, didn't he? After provoking a reaction like that, people probably think she's crazy. I could kill him myself."

She started to pace, trying to find refuge in anger once again.

"No, no, calm down, Uchida-san!" the council president said, waving his hands for calm. "He didn't win. Not by a long shot."

She stopped, and looked at him.

"That's the bright side to this, if there is one," he said, eyes downcast. "He went too far. Yoshino-san has seniority, and a lot of respect, and a lot of people owe her favors. More importantly, everyone could see she was vulnerable. You don't take advantage of someone in a dirty way like that, especially—I'm sorry, but it's true—especially not a girl."

He paused.

"He still had support among some of the members, but he's probably lost it all now. He shot himself in the foot. The disgust on some of their faces…if Yoshino-san hadn't snapped, someone else might have. But I don't think he could stop. He was getting carried away in his own anger. I think—"

"Why didn't you intervene?" she snapped, glaring at him and leaning forward. "You're the damn president. You have the authority."

He flinched in surprise, then shook his head ruefully.

"I don't know. She was always able to take care of it, in the past. Her smackdowns were quite impressive, actually. I guess…I guess I thought she'd be okay. I was wrong."

He straightened his back and nodded to himself.

"Anyway, I know I've gone on for way too long again," he said. "But this is my point. You need to know why she snapped. It was because he went too far. You should have seen the shock on everyone's face. I think even he knew he went too far, but you can't take that kind of thing back."

"What did he say?" she asked quietly, already knowing she wouldn't like the answer.

His face darkened.

"I won't repeat it," he said, voice slightly tinged with anger. "Especially not to you. He's even more of an asshole than I thought he was. But what he said was about you. That's why she snapped."

He adjusted his glasses nervously.

"I heard what you said to Yoshino-san," the president said, looking at her. "Something about a promise. I won't pry, but please don't punish her for something like this. She was only defending you. That's an instinct I can understand. That's why I asked you to stop. What you were saying—it was killing her."

Uchida looked down at the floor, blinking away sudden tears.

_I—Am I stupid?_

She swallowed, choking away the emotion. Not now.

"What's your role in all this?" she asked, as placidly as she could.

_That's it; collect all the information you can, even if you don't know what good it will be. It's what she would do, in my position._

He blinked, surprised at the question.

"Isn't it obvious?" he asked, looking at her with surprise. "Cynically, it is like I said: her mental health is important to keep this place from falling apart. Even as a mere class representative with no formal positions, she's quite important. With finals, entrance exams, and graduation ceremonies coming up, we'll need her leadership."

He looked away in embarrassment.

"Other than that, she was my mentor. I owe her at least this much."

"What happens now?" Uchida asked, straightening her face with a visible effort. "I don't suppose you could overlook what happened?"

"I wish I could," he said. "He had it coming. If it had happened somewhere else, I would make sure everyone 'forgot' about it. But this was far too public, and this school didn't climb to the top of the rankings by allowing fistfights in front of the student council, even after school hours. Too many people have seen it; the word is bound to get back to one of the teachers."

He shook his head.

"I texted the disciplinary committee members while you were passed out. We agree. Three day suspension for her, and one day suspension for him, for inciting it. It's the most lenient we can be without raising suspicions with the administration. I'm sorry."

Uchida nodded, swallowing.

"I understand."

"If it's any consolation," he added. "I'm keeping it off her records, for high school applications. Not exactly legitimate, but it happens more often than you think. One of the perks of power."

He shrugged, then moved to start putting the room back in order.

"Ah—" she began, as he started pulling one of the desks.

"Don't worry about it," he said, the legs of the desk scraping against the floor. "Go home. Get some rest. I insist."

A moment later, she nodded.

"Thank you," she said, bowing slightly, and departed, picking up her bag.

The moment she closed the door behind her, she collapsed against the wall, so quickly that she almost didn't notice that Makoto was standing on the other side.

Her eyes snapped open.

"What are you doing still here?" she asked, looking at him.

"I—I figured I might as well wait. I just—just thought that you might—and you know, who cares if someone sees us? They'll understand. How could they not? They're the ones who chose me to be the one to stay here."

She patted him on the head patronizingly, like Yoshino had done so many times to her. He didn't seem to like it very much either.

"You're sweet," she said.

She leaned against the wall again, staring at the ceiling, holding her hand to her forehead. She could feel his eyes on her.

"Say, Makoto," she said, finally, voice airy.

"Hmm?"

"Yoshino needs me, doesn't she? She can't do it alone."

She waited through the surprised silence, not bothering to look at his expression.

"Well, yes," Makoto said finally. "It's obvious."

"Why would she try to stop needing me?"

Again he paused to consider it.

"I don't know," he conceded.

"If I've been forcing myself into her life, because I want her to need me, does that make me a bad person?" she asked. "Because that's what it is for me. It took me long enough to figure out. I can't stand the idea of her doing something without me, successfully or not."

She almost felt bad dumping all this onto the poor kid, but she needed someone to talk to, and Makoto happened to conveniently be there.

This particular pause was extra long.

"No," he said. "It just…it just means you need her too, doesn't it?"

"Yes, of course," she agreed, though that, too, had taken her too long to understand. "But does that give me a right to force her to tell me? I always thought I was being selfless, trying to help her all the time, trying to take on her problems, but it's been for me the whole time."

She paused briefly.

"I did it because I wanted her to need me," she added. "Because I wanted her to want me there. It's more selfish than selfless, even if I try to pretend otherwise."

"Of course it gives you the right!" he exclaimed.

Startled by his tone of voice, she turned to look at him. He was blushing furiously.

"Of course it does," he insisted, voice determined. "She doesn't have a right to make you miserable! She doesn't have a right to make _herself_ miserable. She's being stupid. If she needs you and you need her, then that's all it takes! It might be selfish, but that's—that's—that is…"

He faltered, stuttered, and bit his lip, tripping over the next word.

"That's what it is," he finally managed lamely, realizing he hadn't even managed to make sense.

"You don't have to say it," she said distantly, eyes looking far past him. "I know where you're going with this."

"Yeah?" he breathed, trying to catch his breath through the embarrassment choking his airways.

"_'Ai'_, right?" she asked rhetorically.

He nodded.

She turned around, suddenly.

"I'm sorry for putting you through that," she said. "I knew all of that. I just wanted someone to verify that I wasn't crazy."

"It's—it's alright," he replied shakily.

"And I'd appreciate it if you never breathed a word of this to anyone," she added, giving him a dangerous look. "I mean it."

"Of course," he said, a tad nervously. "Obviously."

She began to walk down the hallway.

"Wait!" Makoto yelled, far more loudly that was necessary.

She stopped.

"What?" she asked impatiently, turning to look back at him.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"I'm off to do something phenomenally stupid," she said wryly. "Wish me luck."

Without waiting for his response, she continued her walk. A long moment later, she heard his footsteps behind her, getting softer, heading for the other, farther staircase.

She could care less if he followed her now. She knew what to do.

* * *

Two hours later, she found herself struggling uphill through knee-high snow, fumbling with her flashlight, hoping that she was still on some sort of trail, or that, at the very least, it was possible to reach her destination merely by heading consistently in the correct direction.

Ear muffs, woolen cap, and scarf. Two layers of shirts, the thickest jacket she owned, with hood. Two layers of pants. Extra-long, extra-thick socks. Hiking shoes and snow boots. Several chemical hand warmers, by now completely used up. Sleeves tucked into mittens, shirt into pants, pants into socks.

Her mother had been suitably impressed when she spotted Uchida heading out the door.

Pressed for an explanation, Uchida's lying skills had failed her, her mind generating the story that she was feeling sick, and therefore cold, and that she was only headed to the drug store.

It was, in retrospect, the worst possible justification, with the result that she had been forced to slip out while her mother was at the drug store, leaving a long note apologizing for her perfidy. With the benefit of ten minutes thought, the note also gave a much more convincing lie: she was sleeping over at Chiaki's, was in a big hurry because Chiaki told her to get there early, and could always get medicine from there. She placed a call to Chiaki, asking her to provide cover.

Of course, that explanation didn't justify why she had lied, and she hoped her mother would overlook that.

She was only delaying the inevitable, she knew. She didn't want to think about the explanations that might be required when she eventually got back, after her parents had been informed she had been found in Yoshino's place. She had no exit strategy. She hadn't planned for the way back.

Whatever the circumstances, though, she was dressed for a blizzard.

_So why the hell am I still cold? _She lamented, jamming her hands deeper into her pockets. She swore she could feel icicles forming on her eyebrows.

Drawing on her pool of accumulated spending money—very extensive, given her shameful habit of leeching off of Yoshino whenever possible—she had had a taxi drop her off as close to Yoshino's villa as she dared, a trailhead for a popular hiking route located half a kilometer from the steel main gate, with its surveillance cameras and security. The route was covered with snow and sealed with danger signs for the winter, and the taxi driver had looked decidedly skeptical as she got off, especially given that the winter sun had been actively in the process of setting.

She had run off before he had a chance to say anything.

She navigated partly by a hastily printed map with route highlighted in yellow, and partly by instinct. She was already off the marked public trails and was now picking her way through the private trails surrounding the villa, routes which showed up on no online map. She knew they existed only because of vague answers Yoshino had once given her, to appease her curiosity.

Which was not to say that she was now close. It had already been twenty minutes since she had climbed over the locked gate marking the edge of the property and she still had no idea how close she was. She was starting to regret taking the most circuitous possible route—surely, they couldn't have _that_ much security near the front entrances.

_Local girl found dead of exposure on property of local wealthy family! Accident…or foul play? Details at eleven!_

She cracked a smile, a gesture which shocked her increasingly stiff face.

"Okay, no, that's not happening," she said to herself out loud, continuing to drag her feet through the piled snow, leaving massive foot prints behind her.

"Though seriously, how big is this place?" she demanded to no one in particular. "Who the hell needs this much land?"

She was starting to get really tired, and the sky was starting to exit twilight and enter true night. If she were lost—if she wasn't where she thought she was—then she was truly in trouble, of the kind that justified her description to Makoto of this as being "phenomenally stupid".

She rubbed her pocket, with its cell phone pilfered from her mother, like a talisman. It was currently off so she wouldn't have to field any calls but, in an emergency, she could still place a call out. Yoshino's villa, despite being way up in the hills, had mysteriously good reception, so she was sure she could.

_Unless I really_ am _lost_, she thought.

Just as that depressing thought began to chill her natural optimism, a stiff wind nearly knocked her off her feet, stinging her face and causing her to stagger left a few steps.

She looked up. When had the trees cleared this much?

And there it was, the enormous building looking small in the distance, separated from her by a large patch of cleared land.

She took a deep breath, the cold air searing her lungs.

Then she took off sprinting, following her carefully outlined plan. She had to get to the building as quickly as possible, to minimize the chance of someone spotting her. Sure, she was approaching the unused north wing of the building, and it was highly unlikely anybody was hanging about outside, but the theoretical possibility existed.

A few minutes later, she leaned on her knees, panting, next to a secluded side entrance. She ignored the security camera discreetly hidden in the awning above her. She knew for a fact that no one watched the monitors, and that the recordings were automatically archived weekly. As for motion sensors—well, there were too many animals in the region for those to be reliable alarms.

Okay, so she was guessing that last part, and didn't even know if they had motion sensors or sophisticated image analysis in the cameras or whatever. But it was a minimal risk at best.

Not for the first time today, she wished she had listened more attentively the one time Yoshino had chosen to lecture her about the security systems.

One thing she did remember though.

She drew the small keyring from her pocket. One of the innumerable gestures of trust between the two of them, Yoshino had given it to her secretly two years ago, to insure against the remote possibility that Uchida ever got locked out. Uchida had taken it, dropped it into a drawer at home, and never looked at it again, though she could hardly tell Yoshino that. She knew better than to carry anything important like that around with her, given her propensity for losing things.

Uchida regarded the two glistening keys in her hands. One, a simple metal key, for access to Yoshino's room. The other, large, engraved with the outlines of mysterious circuitry, for entering the building itself. It disabled no less than three separate alarm systems, one audible and two silent, that guarded against burglary.

Why had Yoshino given her these, anyway? In retrospect, her explanation made little sense, given that in eleven years of visits, Uchida had never gotten locked out once, and there were servants constantly roaming the central areas of the building who could guard against just such an eventuality.

Was it for just such a situation as this? Did Yoshino anticipate that Uchida would ever need to find her own way in, as she had all those years ago? Why? Nostalgia?

_What goes on in that head of yours? _she thought.

She knocked the snow off her boots, kicking the ground. Wouldn't do to soil the premises.

Then she reached forward, put the key in the lock, and turned, holding her breath despite being quite certain that nothing would happen.

She slipped in, closed and locked the door behind her, then sat against the wall, enjoying the central heating and the chance to rest. It was such a waste, heating the whole wing just to preserve the furniture and paintings, even if it was only heated to nonfreezing.

The relative warmth permeating her body, and Uchida immediately decided that she would never mention the waste ever again, global warming be damned.

She illuminated the entry room with her flashlight, its luxurious furniture now buried under plastic sheeting. It was nice furniture, for whatever that was worth.

She switched the flashlight off and pocketed it awkwardly, plunging her into partial darkness.

As she sat there, she reviewed her vague memories of this sealed wing of the house. She had explored it with Yoshino a couple of times, when Yoshino had first moved in, and then they had lost interest. But those eleven year old memories were all she had, and she would have to rely on them.

Still, she knew the general direction to go, and she had remembered the door, hadn't she? How lost could she possibly get?

She withdrew her mother's cell phone, cursing herself for not wearing a watch.

She turned it on, listening to its electronic chime.

It was 6:10 PM and…there were no missed calls.

_So far so good_, she thought, turning the device back off.

She sat there for a full twenty minutes, staring at the ceiling, turning things over in her head. She had known she would have to wait here; she needed to be as early as possible, to avoid getting trapped out in the cold of true nighttime. At the same time, she was forced to wait until she was absolutely certain Yoshino was done eating dinner.

It was a good thing the girl ate early.

Still, the wait was a curse. She could feel her resolve leaking away with each passing moment. The longer she sat there, the crazier her plan seemed to be.

Finally, she struggled to her feet, turning her flashlight back on. Her polar bear-like attire was doing an admirable job of keeping her warm in the subdued cold of the building; still, her joints were stiff.

_Alright, so I head to the far corner of the room…head down this narrow hallway…open the door…_

Yes, she was right; that placed her in one of the hallways that ran along the rear of the house, one liberally supplied with windows. The architect must have loved the idea of endless windows that opened onto a magnificent view; it was a motif that was repeated throughout the building.

Of course, since the building ran north to south, it meant hellish sunlight in the summer; in the occupied parts of the building, this was held off by thick curtains and, more importantly, the liberal use of air conditioning. Again, not exactly the most energy-efficient of residences.

Here, the curtains were always closed, which allowed her to tread down the hallway with abandon, without having to fear the distant chance that there was actually someone crazy enough to be walking around the rear grounds at this time.

She smiled slightly, happy she could still remember all this.

_And here's an angled hallway…_

Yep, there it was.

She turned, allowing the hallway to plunge her more deeply into the building. Only a few meters in, she turned into an alcove on the left side.

_Up the stairs…turn right…down the hallway…_

She stopped. There was a wall directly across her path, adorned by a single plastic-covered painting of some birds. Her only choices were right or left.

_There shouldn't be a wall here! _she thought, shaken by the failure of her navigation skills.

She turned right, back towards the rear of the building, making a quick decision.

She found a small reading room, with a small door at the far side of the room.

_No, this isn't right at all!_

Ignoring the door, she retraced her steps, choosing this time to take the left branch.

To her relief, this branch, after a bit of walking, turned sharply into a new hallway, one she recognized. She was back in familiar territory.

_Right, of course. The central hallway. Why would I head towards the rear?_

She had forgotten about that little alcove.

Her pace slowed as she struggled down the corridor in her bulky boots and coat. She was tired. More than that, her resolve was starting to waver, as she realized what exactly it was she was doing. Her destination drew closer, the air got perceptibly warmer, and her booted feet grew heavier and heavier.

_I can't turn back now!_ she thought, realizing with trepidation that the sheer impossibility of going back the way she came was now the primary reason she kept going.

_No,_ she thought. _I can't be that weak. I have to show more resolve than that._

Stiffening her back, she quickened her pace, turning it into a march. She wouldn't let this slow her.

Faster than she expected, then, she reached the end of the hideously long hallway: another double turn, a brief stretch of causeway, then a single impassive door in front of her, another painting on the wall to her left, and a set of double doors to her right.

Unlike everything that she had seen before the last set of turns, this area was obviously kept under constant maintenance, the paintings and sidetables kept uncovered. She could even see a bit of dim lighting leaking through the door in front of her.

The doors to her right led to the guest bedroom, a room that had only been used once in her memory, that one time with Touma. By cutting through that room, she could shorten the amount of time she spent in the open.

…by maybe two meters. It was still worth it.

She pushed open one of the doors—thankfully unlocked—careful to avoid any creaking noises.

_What am I worried about? If there were anyone close enough to hear any creaking, then I'm doomed either way._

She closed the door behind her, got her bearings, and walked over to the other door.

She switched off her flashlight and slipped it into her coat pocket. She reached into her outer pants and pulled out the keys again, this time focusing on the simple, small metal key.

It was only a few meters between this door and the door to Yoshino's office, but those few meters meant everything. It was the only time she would be out where anyone else could see her, since the office connected directly to Yoshino's room. If any of the servants happened to be walking by during the moments she was passing, it was all over. It didn't help that the area in question was open to the lower floor via the two fancy spiral staircases, and was also the main route for passing between the two floors.

She pressed her ear to the door, straining to hear if there was anyone on the other side.

Nothing.

She took a deep breath.

Opening the door, she glanced rapidly around her, saw nothing, closed it behind her, then dashed straight to the double doors of Yoshino's office.

Damn. Locked. But she was prepared for this. That was why she had the key out.

Fumbling with the key in her haste, she got it in on the third try, turned, stumbled in, and closed the door behind her, exerting all her willpower not to close it so rapidly it slammed.

She leaned against the doors, breathing heavily—but not too heavily, lest she be heard. She was in.

She half-expected Yoshino to be right there, sitting at her desk, staring at her, but no, the room was empty, the door to her bedroom closed.

It almost seemed ridiculous calling a room that belonged to a fifteen-year old girl an office, but that was what it was. There was no other way to describe it.

Uchida walked forward and sat down in the high back, absurdly comfortable chair, making sure to spin around at least once. She always wanted to, but Yoshino frowned on such behavior, to the point that she made sure Uchida rarely got a chance to sit there.

She took a moment to admire the mahogany desk, the absurdly powerful computer Chiaki drooled over, the giant monitor, the beautiful lamp, the plush carpeting, the bookshelves, the—everything, really. She rarely took the time to look, really _look_, but when she did, she had to admit feeling the slightest twinge of jealousy.

Of course, she was procrastinating, sitting there.

She slipped off her boots, dropping them on the floor next to the table. It had been horrible of her to walk through the building with them on, but she had had no choice; they were far too bulky to carry while also managing the flashlight. At least she had made sure they were as clean as possible.

She unburdened herself of her coat, her gloves, and all her other winter accoutrements, which were now combining to make her sweat in this heated part of the building.

She started to stand up, then stopped.

The muffled sound of a violin, through the door, as sonorous as ever.

_No, wait…_

She listened more carefully.

The tune was sad, yes, and seemed to be well-played, but the violinist kept pausing, as if she couldn't remember the notes—and there was the slightest hint of discordance. It wasn't mesmerizing, like it should have been.

Uchida got up again.

_So._

She took a moment to peek her head through the curtains behind her, taking in the panoramic view of the hills behind the house and the moon overhead.

There was nothing to it now but to charge into the breach.

Uchida walked over to the other door, her carpeted feet padding softly against the carpet.

She placed her hand on the doorknob, took a deep breath, and turned.

She took in the scene all at once, deliberately. There was Yoshino, lying on her bed, struggling with her violin, playing from a decidedly nonstandard position. The curtains to the windows were flung wide open, to let in the moonlight. Next to the girl, on the table next to the lamp, was a half-empty bottle of some unidentifiable liquid Uchida was sure was alcoholic. It was clearly in use.

_Wow_, she mouthed involuntary. Never would she ever have imagined…

The music stopped with a screech, its creator clearly sensing something was amiss.

"I leave you alone for two days, and I find you like this," Uchida said sardonically, the words out before she realized what she was saying. "What the hell?"

Yoshino sat bolt-upright, a tad slower than she should have.

"What—what are you doing here?" she asked, staring at her as if she had seen a ghost. "Why—"

"You know very well why I'm here!" Uchida said, pressing forward, not giving herself a chance to lose momentum.

"Are you crazy?" Yoshino asked, blinking at her. "How did you—"

Uchida stalked forward towards the bed, ignoring the comment as Yoshino stopped talking, realizing the answer to her own question.

"I'll have you thrown out," Yoshino asserted. "I wouldn't even have to do it myself. I would just have to get their attention, and it would be all over."

"Try it," Uchida growled, still getting closer.

Yoshino started to get up off the bed, opening her mouth.

_She's actually going to do it!_ Uchida thought incredulously. _I can't believe it!_

With no time to think, she jumped and dove forward, shocking even herself with her decisiveness.

Several seconds of struggling later, she had her right hand covering Yoshino's mouth, and Yoshino's body and one arm pinned with her weight, the other arm pinned with her left hand. Yoshino was the stronger girl, but she had the positional advantage.

Yoshino looked back at her with wide, shocked eyes, struggling to break her hold.

Uchida did her best to swallow her own trepidation and panic. She had not planned for this. What the hell was she doing?

_I had no choice! She was going to yell for the others!_

A singularly strange thought wormed itself into her head. She had Yoshino at her mercy.

She could—could do anything she wanted!

"I'm not going back," she said breathlessly. "Not after all I've been through. We're going to talk, whether you want to or not."

She could feel Yoshino's mouth try to move against her hand, her body try to shift under her. The unexpected sensations spoiled her clarity of mind.

_When did I become some sort of kidnapper? _she thought in horror.

"Promise me you won't yell or anything like that, and I'll let go," she said, almost reluctantly.

Yoshino's head jerked up and down rapidly.

Uchida released her weight and stepped back, bracing herself for the eventuality of Yoshino breaking her word.

But Yoshino kept her silence, sitting up. She looked, as might be expected, profoundly unsettled.

More importantly, Uchida, knowing now to look, could see the slight twinge of embarrassment in her face.

_So she felt it too!_

That had implications.

Nervously, she cleared her throat, but Yoshino spoke first.

"She told me I should have left you behind," Yoshino said, shaking her head. "I should have listened."

"No," Uchida said firmly, stamping a foot for added effect. "No more of this nonsense. You are telling me right now. I have a right to be here. I have a right to know."

"It's for your own good," Yoshino said darkly.

Uchida stepped forward and grabbed Yoshino by the shoulders, shaking, accepting the anger she felt.

"I told you! No more nonsense!"

Yoshino looked away from her, but otherwise ignored that she had said anything.

"What is it?" Uchida asked, more gently. "This isn't like you. None of this is like you."

She gestured incoherently at the abandoned violin on the bed, the alcohol on the bedside.

"Can't you see I'm suffering?" she asked

As she waited for a response, she felt her eyes wet with tears, and realized with a start that they were entirely genuine.

"Of course I can," Yoshino said quietly

"Then why—"

"It's for you that I'm doing this!" Yoshino snapped, turning to face her. "Can't you see? I'm trying to protect you! I—"

Yoshino slammed her mouth shut.

It occurred to Uchida that the alcohol was loosening Yoshino's tongue, and she was glad for its effects.

"Protect me? From what?" she asked, not demanding, but pleading.

Again, it was clear Yoshino didn't want to talk, but that was her eroding self-control was giving way.

"You don't deserve to be dragged into this," Yoshino mumbled. "Any of it. You should never have been involved."

Taking the opening, Uchida leaned forward, trying to force eye contact.

"Involved in what? In what?"

"In anything!" Yoshino practically shouted, blowing her back with the force of her voice.

Uchida should have been nervous about the servants hearing, but this was not the right time to be worrying about that anymore.

"What—what are you talking about?" she quavered.

Instead of responding, Yoshino looked down at the floor, expression gloomy.

"Why are you here, Yuka?"

Uchida blinked.

"I told you! You know—"

"No, not that! More generally. What have I ever done to deserve this kind of devotion? Am I really worth all that?"

Uchida watched Yoshino's eyes, frozen in pain. Something about those eyes broke her heart.

"What—what is this?" she stammered, her reaction all out of proportion to the words. "I don't understand. What are you talking about?"

Yoshino buried her face in her hands.

"Everyone thinks I'm so perfect, so rational, such a nice girl," she said, voice full of some kind of hatred. "I even had myself fooled. But they don't understand. I'm none of those things. Not even close."

"How can you say that—" Uchida tried to interject, her own voice filled with reflected pain.

"The only _reason_," Yoshino said, looking up, overriding Uchida with force of will. "The only reason I can make everyone think that is because I leech off of everyone else. My _mother_, who gave her life to be here. The Old Man, who's dead now. And you. None of you ever had any reason to support me like that. I've never given a thing back."

"That's not true!" Uchida interrupted, trying to formulate a counterargument. "Have you forgotten all those homeworks? All those times—"

"Not enough," Yoshino said. "Not enough. You have no idea what you're doing, do you, being there all the time? All that emotional support."

She gestured around her, and at herself.

"Look at me. Look at what happens without you. I'm a wreck. I'm not stable without you. I mean that. I've known for a while now. I'm not really a stable person."

Uchida's eyes widened, realizing that Yoshino was entirely serious.

_What? Does she—I thought—I thought she was—_

"But I'm glad to be here!" Uchida insisted. "There's no need to pay me back! I'm happy just being here! I'm happy to give you whatever you need. _That_ is my payment. That, and you yourself."

Again, the words were out before she even knew it. She hadn't meant to say it quite that explicitly.

_But I meant it._

Yoshino looked at her with such self-loathing that it hurt to see.

"I've always admired you, for how pure you are," Yoshino said. "That always sustained me. I fed on it. But I'm destroying you. You're pure, and I'm not. Without me, you wouldn't have to go through any of this. You have a family, you have friends, you could even get a boyfriend if you wanted—we both know it wouldn't be hard, for you. Instead, you follow me around, when I don't deserve it. _I don't deserve it_."

Yoshino drew a breath, and Uchida was momentarily at a loss for words.

"You take so much collateral damage, being around me. You know why I quit my run for student council president? Because I knew that if I really did it that seriously, people would start targeting you. So I quit. But it's not just that. It's who I am. I'm corrupting you."

"Co—corrupting?" Uchida spluttered. "What? That's nonsense!"

"Think about it!" Yoshino insisted.

She paused for a long moment, forming thoughts into words.

"Where would you be, if you had never met me? You wouldn't have to worry about me and all my problems. You wouldn't have almost passed out in front of the class. You wouldn't have had to burn your eyes out studying to get into a school you didn't even want to go to! You'd be so much happier, so much more the way you _should_ be. An ordinary, undisturbed life, with none of this drama and agonizing,"

Yoshino stopped, then continued falteringly, her argument suddenly losing force.

"I, I—" she stammered. "None of this should ever have happened. I _know_ you're suffering, and that's my fault. All of it. Without me, you could get a boyfriend, live a normal life…"

Yoshino's voice trailed off, as she continued to mumble reasons that were now inaudible, avoiding her gaze.

Uchida watched, mystified. The explanation showed no sign of the polished logic that usually accompanied a Yoshino explanation. Instead, it was vague and rambling. Sure, it might have been the alcohol, but Uchida was sure she wasn't intoxicated enough to forget her own reasons.

It was almost as if Yoshino's chain of logic had been broken, and she was trying to come up with another way to finish the thought.

And it was broken because…because…

_Because she's trying to skip something important, something she doesn't want to talk about._

"_Without me, you could get a boyfriend," _she had said._ "Live a normal life…"_

That was the second time in this conversation Yoshino had brought up the topic of boyfriends, almost completely out of the blue.

_I think I understand._

Uchida wavered only a moment before taking the plunge.

She sat down, embracing Yoshino from behind.

The girl stiffened, her incoherent speech terminating abruptly.

It was a dirty trick on Uchida's part, doing something like this to short-circuit Yoshino's defenses, but she felt such tricks were easily forgivable, in this situation.

"That's so silly," she said. "What's all this about deserving and corruption and whatever? If it's true that you need me, then like I said, I'm glad to be here. No, I'm more than glad, I—"

She swallowed, feeling strange quoting Touma at a moment like this, but she had spent all the past day preparing what she was about to say, and she would be damned before she would drop it now.

"Whatever you think I am, whatever you say you admire about me, I only have because of you. I wouldn't be me without you, just like you wouldn't be you without me. If you think you've been feeding on my "purity", whatever that is, then I've only been pure because you've been here. If you're corrupting me, it's only fair. We're two matched halves. It's only natural that we share each other's problems, and the only selfish thing is for you not to tell me everything."

She took a breath, diving into deeper territory.

"You think I've been any better, without you? I'm just as much a mess as you are. Before you ask such a stupid question as whether you deserve me, you should think about how much _I_ deserve _you_. And I know I do. But you know what? Neither of those are relevant questions. It's not a matter of fairness, or deserving, it's a matter of—"

Uchida sucked in another breath. No, not yet. First things first.

She leaned forward, so she could speak into Yoshino's ear. The girl was breathing heavily, almost hyperventilating—she could feel it, and the sweat that was forming on Yoshino's neck.

"I know what happens, what happened before, with the alcohol," she said. "I can remember now, and I know you remember too. I can tell, now that I'm paying attention."

She leaned back slightly, still not letting go.

"And it's okay," she said. "Corruption or not, it's okay. It's like what you said about the furniture and stuff. We're not little girls anymore. Certain things…can't be the same anymore. I—"

She swallowed again.

"When I was a girl, I kept telling myself about my fantasy, that one day some prince would show up on his white horse and take me away, take care of me, protect me. I told you about it. I told everyone. And the silly thing was, he was here all along, doing all those things, and I never noticed."

She smiled, happy just to have it out there, certain she had made her point.

"Do I have to say it?" she finished. "Do you really want to make me say something so cheesy?"

Her mind was filled with a strange bliss. She was sure she had hit it out of the ballpark. Surely there was no way Yoshino could ignore her now.

So it was only more shocking when Yoshino leaned forward and turned her head to look at her, and those eyes were only darker and even more pained, as if her words had hurt rather than healed.

"I—what—how?" Uchida stammered, utterly distraught.

"I knew you'd say something like that if you found out," Yoshino said quietly. "That's who you are, what kind of person you are. It only makes the guilt worse. You have no idea how badly I've betrayed you."

Yoshino moved deliberately away, until she was facing the wall, head down, looking like she was trying to compact herself into as little space as possible.

Uchida watched her back, breathing softly, head throbbing.

"Betrayed? I—" she began.

"How do I even say it?" Yoshino interrupted, voice blanched of emotion, but somehow sounding all the worse for it.

"You think it's all accidents, impulses," she said. "Love, sure. I'll say it if you won't. But if that's true, that was only true once, the first time."

"I remembered, every single time, even though I told you I didn't," she continued, speaking almost matter-of-factly. "I made sure I did. Because every time after that, I planned it. Every single detail. How I would talk you into it. How much to make sure you drank before I did anything, so you would forget. How to trick you into thinking I was drinking as much as you were. How to hide the evidence afterward. How to override your protests. I got damn good at it. I couldn't control myself. I wanted it too badly. The temptation was just too…"

Her voice trailed off, the deluge of words terminating abruptly.

Uchida's head spun. This wasn't—

"I don't understand," she began, voice tremulous, eye twitching. "I don't—I—what?"

"Don't make me say it!" Yoshino growled, punctuating her word be slamming her fist into the wall, finally showing emotion. She was angry, not at Uchida, but at herself.

"You know what I mean! There are words for what I did to you. Words like betrayal. Far worse words. I can't say it. I can't say it."

She was starting to choke on her words, her chest heaving with sobs.

Uchida leaned over, putting her head in her hands, eyes wide, heart racing, mind sifting through recovered memories, casting them in a new, darker light.

_Haven't you ever been curious?_ Yoshino had asked

_I can't sleep at night, thinking about you._

_I love you._

Was it all a lie? It was nothing but a mind-trick, a dirty ruse?

No, it wasn't. And that was the worst part.

"Why didn't you just tell me?" she asked, voice shaking. "We could have…talked. Why would you do something like that? Why would you lie to me? Why lie about something like this?"

She wrung the bedsheet in her hands, face anguished, the pain in her chest magnifying. The sense of betrayal was profound, and at the moment she couldn't bring herself to look up.

"How could I?" Yoshino asked. "I'd already taken so much from you. How could I tell you I was destroying your life? How could I let you know you were something like that? I had to protect you—"

"This is worse!" Uchida snapped, snarling the words, looking up.

"You think I don't know that?" Yoshino demanded, turning to glare back.

She accidentally met Uchida's eyes, then snapped her head away.

"Everything would have been alright, if I could have just—just—controlled myself! But I couldn't. I'm a monster. I kept going back. And I lied to myself, I told myself it was okay, no one would ever know, there was nothing wrong with it. But I knew. I knew."

She buried her head deeper into her crossed arms, trying to shrink herself into an even smaller ball, back still facing Uchida, who just sat there, stock still.

Her voice started to shake, the adrenaline fading.

"I'm a hypocrite," she sobbed. "I'm a failure. I can't do anything right. I'm not—I'm not supposed to be crying. I don't want to make you pity me. I want you to hate me, like you should. Hit me, scream at me!"

This last sentence came out as a cry of anguish, as she turned to grab Uchida by the shoulders.

"Don't just sit there like a statue!" she said, shaking Uchida by the shoulders. "Can't you understand what I've done?"

She made eye contact, breaking Uchida's introspective paralysis.

"I can't," Uchida said, digging furiously through her own soul as she spoke. "I can't do it. I can't hate you. It's just not there. I know I should—I just—I just can't!"

With these last words, she grabbed Yoshino's shirt, burying her head, seeking comfort in the last place she should, letting the tears flow.

Yoshino recoiled, but not with enough force to pull away.

"Even now, you—" she said, torn between the urge to reciprocate and her loathing for herself.

Uchida said nothing. She had no idea what to do anymore. Might as well just keep crying.

"It's alright, I guess," Yoshino said darkly, resignedly. "It doesn't have to come from you. I've known all along that it couldn't last. No one with a heart as black as mine could defy karma for so long. I've got my punishment, alright. It'll be over soon enough."

Something clicked in Uchida's mind

She abruptly stopped crying.

"What on earth are you talking about?" she demanded, looking up, still clinging to Yoshino's arms like a pillar.

"It's none of your business," Yoshino said automatically.

"Of course it's my business!" she insisted, sitting up, turning her grip on Yoshino's arm into a grip of inquisition. In this moment of madness, it was the only shining certainty she had.

"How can you still care?" Yoshino pleaded. "How? You know what I've done, how I've betrayed you! Why won't you leave? Doesn't it hurt?"

"Of course it does!"

"Then why?" Yoshino demanded.

"I—I—" Uchida stammered.

"Give up already," Yoshino insisted. "I told you. I don't deserve it. I'm just a piece of trash."

Yoshino spat the last word out, but her tone wasn't what Uchida focused on.

Her eyes widened.

An ancient memory—

"_My parents?" Yoshino has asked incredulously, on the day Uchida first talked to her._

"_Don't ever talk to me about my parents!" Yoshino had growled. "I hate them! They threw me away like a piece of trash! Why should I care about them?"_

—and Uchida could suddenly see it all in her mind's eye, so so clearly.

"Your parents," she said. "You're still hung up on them abandoning you."

Yoshino froze.

"I'm right, aren't I?" Uchida said. "You still care, even though you tell everyone you don't. Even though you tell yourself you don't. That's what all this has been about, isn't it? All this stuff with the student council, running for President even though you don't want to. All this about trying to be perfect, trying to be good, trying to be rational, all this hating yourself every time you can't do it—you're still trying to prove them wrong!"

Yoshino looked at her, face twitching between various expressions.

"What does it matter if you're right?" she growled contemptuously. "I didn't prove them wrong at all. I still turned out to be a piece of trash."

"No, you listen to me," Uchida ordered, getting on her knees to gain superior height, grabbing Yoshino's face in her hands and pulling her forward.

Yoshino looked back up at her like a frightened deer.

The clarity was intoxicating. Gone was Uchida's previous indecision and confusion. Everything was falling into place, she understood _everything_.

She brought everything she had ever learned about Yoshino to bear.

"No one is perfect. You don't have to be. No one is judging you. That woman in the room down the hall isn't judging you. The Old Man didn't judge you. I'm not judging you. No one cares if you have an angry streak, or if you don't know how to take care of your hair, or that you look stupid sometimes in pictures, or that you've never done a load of laundry. No one cares that you're not ranked number one in the school. No one cares that you didn't earn any of your money. No one cares that you're not the Boss's real daughter. No one cares that your parents left you behind. Stop judging yourself on standards no one can meet!"

She took a breath.

"And I don't care. I don't care if you've been leeching off me your whole life, or whatever. I can forgive that. I can even forgive all the dirty things you've done to me. The only thing I can't forgive is you trying to leave me behind, for something as stupid as this! You ask me why I care? I care because I love you! There isn't a difference between your problems and my problems! So tell me what this is about!"

She saw Yoshino's eyes soften slightly, relaxing from their previous shocked configuration, but then harden again.

Yoshino pulled her head away with a jerk, leaving Uchida's hands grasping empty air.

_Why isn't this working?_ she despaired. _Everything—I have it all worked out! Then why?_

"You're right," Yoshino said, shaking her head, voice subdued. "Nothing you have said is wrong, but no. I'm not that easy. I don't care if you have it all figured out. I don't care if everything you said is true. I'm making my last stand here. I won't let you throw your life away for me. Maybe I'm wrong on the particulars, but I'm still right overall. You're asking to merge your life with mine, but your life pales compared to the sheer magnitude of what I'm tied up in. I realize that now. It'd swallow you whole."

"I don't care if you understand that. It's love, but it's irrational. The costs are far too steep. You can't convince me otherwise."

Yoshino looked up, and they locked eyes, not in camaraderie, but in confrontation. Fire against fire, will versus will. Stalemate.

_I can't do this!_ Uchida despaired. _I can't break through! I can't penetrate her logic!_

_Is this it then?_

A thought occurred to her.

Thinking about it, planning it carefully—that was Yoshino's _modus operandi_. Yoshino always had her reasons, her justifications, and no matter how misguided or twisted they might be, they were solid as steel to her, and could never be broken on their own ground.

That wasn't her job.

She was the _impulsive _one, the emotional one. That was how their relationship worked. Why had she gone away from that? Why had she spent days trying to find justification, spent days plotting? Why was she sitting here pitting her logic against Yoshino's?

All her careful planning, calling Riko, talking to people, trying to do things rationally, had only obtained the smallest of gains. But breaking down in front of the class, losing control and confronting Yoshino in the council meeting, even her impulsive decision to walk through kilometers of snow to get here—that's where all the real progress had been. In the impulse, in the emotion.

"It's not rational," she growled, looking down, leaning over the other girl. "And don't go around thinking you're the only one getting anything from this, that it's just you who wants it. It's like I said. You're the payment. I need you to need me. I've realized that. I want your problems, I want your life, I want _you_."

She saw Yoshino draw breath to marshal a counterargument, but she didn't give her the chance.

She leaned over and completed the incipient kiss.

Yoshino's eyes became impossibly wide. She had surprised her.

She closed her eyes, not bothering to check whether Yoshino agreed, but…

It was nice, and she could feel Yoshino's hands on her back, moving, grasping, showing way too much interest in going down—

_No, I can't get pulled in. Not yet._

She pushed Yoshino back, and the girl blinked back at her.

Yoshino coughed, face starting to redden, and Uchida was sure she had her.

Then Yoshino started laughing, and Uchida almost toppled over.

"You're laughing?" she demanded incredulously, without thinking. "Laughing? What could possibly be funny?"

"What other reaction is possible?" Yoshino asked, trembling slightly, barely managing to get the words out. "So it's true. It's all true."

Uchida watched Yoshino's body shake in mirth and realized that Yoshino hadn't been kidding at all. It really had been her last stand. Uchida had outlasted her.

The emotional pit that had separated them was closed.

"I win," she said, without any trace of irony.

"I'm exhausted," Yoshino said, wiping her eyes with one hand. "I've got nothing left. You can see that, can't you? I've done everything I can. You're still determined to be a fool."

"And now you're insulting me?" Uchida asked. "Sore loser."

"I'm a fool too," Yoshino said, eyes weary but relived. "For falling in love like this. I thought at least I could spare you, that maybe you weren't really that devoted. I guess I was wrong."

"You were _testing_ me?" Uchida asked.

"No!" Yoshino insisted, covering one eye with her hand, looking downward. "Of course not. I just…thought that…if I could get you to go away, then yes, it'd hurt for you in the short-term, but I'd be the only one hurting in the long-term. Something like that."

Uchida glared at her, even though Yoshino wasn't saying anything she didn't already know.

"You really are a piece of work," she said. "The things you say sound like they _should_ make perfect sense, but are actually perfect nonsense. Why do I trust you to make decisions?"

"I don't know," Yoshino said, smiling slightly.

"No more chit-chat," Uchida said. "You're telling me what's going on. Now."

* * *

"—and then there's that damn will again, which is of course useless in every aspect that matters," Yoshino ranted, hand up in the air, short hair growing increasingly unkempt. "I mean sure he _tried_, but he should have thought of something else. I mean, what, did he not ever think to ask one of the family lawyers whether a guardianship-transfer clause would even work? Which of course it doesn't! Why would he even think it could? Anyway, it's totally worthless, which renders the whole thing moot. What does it even matter if she can take the money and go if she can't legally take me with her? If only I were older…"

"I—I see," Uchida responded, blinking at the torrent of words, trying to say something meaningful. "So now—"

"Now they get to move me around like a puppet! Attend some of those damn parties, they say. Choose someone to get engaged with, they say. Move to a whole different _island_ for high school. As if I could do any of that!"

"And that's the worst part, you know," Yoshino said, starting to lose momentum. "The other stuff I could tolerate; like she said, I could just fake it for five years, but being forced to move away…I couldn't stand it. I can't stand it."

She turned to look at Uchida, and Uchida could see the exhaustion and despair in her eyes.

Yoshino leaned over, burying her head on Uchida's shoulder.

Uchida felt a pang in her heart, and realized she had been waiting a long, long time for Yoshino to unburden herself on her.

She put her hand on Yoshino's back.

"Su—surely it's not so bad," she said, enforcing on her voice a determined calm. "I mean, we can visit, and call, and stuff."

She was trying to be reassuring, but in truth, she was starting to panic.

All she could think about was how lonely she had felt, these past two days.

But she had to remain calm. The last thing Yoshino needed was for her to break down too. Somehow that gave her enough resolve to stay calm.

"Of course it's bad!" Yoshino said, appalled, looking up at her. "How could you say that?"

"I—well, I—" Uchida began.

Yoshino put her head back on her shoulder.

"I—I thought I could save you," she said. "If I kept you away long enough, then I could just disappear one day and—maybe that would be better."

"Why on earth would you think that?" Uchida asked, incredulous but not angry, stroking Yoshino's hair with hand. "How could that possibly be better?"

A brief silence, as Yoshino shifted her weight to make their current arrangement more sustainable.

"You were right, earlier," Yoshino said, in the tone of a person confessing a sin. "I _was_ testing you. I realize that now. I knew I was hurting you, I knew you didn't care if I let my problems suck you in, but I just couldn't believe you cared about me that much, so I thought the pain would be greater for me than for you. That–that would justify what I was doing."

Uchida grabbed Yoshino's shoulder with her right arm, giving her a half-embrace.

"I forgive you," she said, voice level. "But I find your lack of faith disturbing. And please drop this stuff about you corrupting me."

"It's not normal," Yoshino said. "It's not right. You know that."

Uchida wanted to tell her she was wrong, but she—she didn't know either. Not really. She understood the two of them, and nothing else. How would they fit in? How could they fit in?

"We'll talk about it later, okay?" she said instead, feeling like she was copping out.

She paused, mulling over her next words.

She had to say it, even if she didn't want to.

"But for now, don't you think this is a bit much? After all, it's not at all clear that they'll really make you do any of that. I'm worried too, but…maybe they can be talked out of it. I don't know. But your parents want to live with you. Maybe that means they care now, somehow."

She felt Yoshino tense, saw the flash of anger cross her face, and was instantly regretful.

But the anger subsided, and Yoshino's voice carried a grim resignation.

"You sound just like _she_ does," she said, bitter. "And you're both right. I should just talk to them, at least try it."

Yoshino cast her eyes downward.

"But I can't face them. Not after hating them all these years. I don't know what I'd do. I might break down crying. I might storm out in anger. I don't want to face it."

Uchida stayed silent, not sure what to say. Yoshino was behaving emotionally, irrationally. None of what she had done had really made sense, whatever her justifications. That was what had started this crisis, for better or worse.

But now it was damaging her, destroying her ability to function. Uchida could see that.

"Why did this have to happen?" Yoshino asked, voice carrying a trace of agony. "All I wanted…was for things to stay the same. I just wanted it all to stand still. Was that so much to ask for?"

Uchida opened her heart wide, waited for the right words, for the impulse to overtake her and tell her what to say.

But nothing happened. This wasn't the right moment.

Why wasn't it working? It was frustrating, to get so far, and then be stymied here. After all the progress she had made—

"I don't know," she said. "But we'll make it somehow, okay? You don't have to do it now. We can wait a while."

Yoshino nodded silently.

Uchida watched Yoshino's face, trying to decide what to do next, but still no answers came.

"Can we stop now?" Uchida asked, trying for levity, dropping her arm and turning. "I don't know how much more of this I can take, pretending to be the responsible one. I'm not built for it! Can we go back to the way we were before?"

_Alright, that sucked_, she admitted to herself.

Yoshino cracked a slight smile.

"I don't think I'm ready for that yet," she said ruefully. "Maybe tomorrow."

Uchida made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat. This wasn't going anywhere.

She looked at Yoshino again, looking defeated and tired, and felt again what she had felt the day before. The feeling was…

That it wasn't natural for her arms to be empty, that there should be someone there.

In this moment of frustration she was willing to do something, _anything_, to eliminate the feeling of impotence that suddenly plagued her.

Then she remembered what had happened earlier.

_Well, that's a strange thought_, she thought wryly.

But hadn't she decided it was wise to follow her emotions?

"Tell me something," she asked Yoshino, tilting her head slightly. The main doors to your room, they're locked, right?"

Yoshino looked at her curiously, surprised at the change in topic.

"Well, yes," she said. "I've gotten into the pretty miserable habit of locking my doors, these past couple of days."

"And for the same reason, they're not expecting to see you leave your room again today, right?" Uchida asked. "No reason that door would ever open?"

"Yes, you're right," Yoshino responded, a moment late, her eyes narrowing. "They're not expecting to see me again today, so you're temporarily safe, if that's what you're wondering. That _is _why you're asking, right? Or—"

Uchida pounced, not giving her time to react, pinning her arms and covering her mouth in the exact same way as she had earlier.

Yoshino looked back, eyes wide with surprise, but this time she didn't struggle. She looked back at Uchida, and her eyes transitioned from shock to curiosity. Curiosity…and something else.

Uchida looked down, and smiled.

* * *

"So can I ask a question?" Uchida asked, looking up at the ceiling, hands under her head.

Yoshino made an assenting noise. Uchida could feel her eyes watching her from the neighboring pillow.

"Do you have something against my hair?" Uchida asked. "Has it insulted you or wronged you somehow? Is that why you insist on pulling on it all the time? I can have it cut if it really bothers you that much."

She heard Yoshino suppress a laugh.

"And here I thought you had a serious question," Yoshino commented.

"It is serious," Uchida said, rolling over to face Yoshino. "I've had this style forever, and maybe it's time for a change. The pigtails aren't really a mature look. How do you think I'd look with short hair? "

Yoshino dutifully thought about it, then started laughing, her mirthful expression only growing more pronounced.

Uchida made a consciously annoyed expression.

"You'd look hilarious," Yoshino said, grabbing her by the shoulder.

"And why would I look hilarious when you don't?" Uchida asked, peeved.

In response, Yoshino slid her arm up her neck in a deliberately intimate gesture, sweeping her fingers into her hair. Uchida's breath quickened.

"Just keep it," Yoshino said. "Or at least the long hair. I like it. And I don't know what I'd do without something to pull."

She gave the strands of hair among her fingers a playful tug. Uchida shoved her hand away.

"What a weirdo," she complained, brushing her insulted hair with her own fingers.

"Just call it a fetish," Yoshino countered. "It's what it is."

Uchida blushed automatically, but rolled away to hide her face.

"Just for that, I think I _have _to cut it," she said.

"Oh, you wouldn't," Yoshino said.

Uchida waited through the awkward pause.

"And is it really true I got fatter?" she asked.

"Obviously I say that just to bug you," Yoshino responded matter-of-factly. "And to keep you on your toes, given your questionable eating habits. For the record, I'd prefer it if you didn't gain weight, since after all…"

Some combination of Yoshino's slight pause and the quiet rustle of sheets tipped Uchida off. Before she even realized what she was doing, she flinched away, twisting to grab Yoshino's reaching hand before it could squeeze her sides, another one of her annoying teasing habits, along with the head-patting, hair-pulling, and uncalled-for elbowing.

They made eye contact, and Yoshino blinked, frowning.

"Your reaction time has gotten better," she commented. "But you're so mean! You should just let me."

"The last person I want to hear that from is you," Uchida retorted.

They looked at each for a while longer.

"So is it my turn to ask questions yet?" Yoshino asked innocently, eyes unnaturally wide.

"If you want," Uchida replied, returning to her original face-up position. The energy she had been running on up until then was nearly depleted. Without a strong emotional impetus to keep her wired, her eyes felt heavy.

"Ask away," she asked, a moment later, wondering why Yoshino was pausing.

"It's more of a statement, I guess," Yoshino explained.

"Well, get on with it," Uchida said with a sigh, leaning back into the pillow, feeling suddenly really, really tired. And her legs hurt. And she was hungry. In fact, she wasn't sure whether she was more sleepy or hungry, but since she didn't have any realistic prospects of getting food, sleep seemed to be the better way to go.

"I'm not a prince," Yoshino said. "In fact—"

"Well, _obviously_," Uchida interjected, trying to hurry the conversation along. "Trust me, if I somehow had any doubt about that, it's definitely gone now."

"No, not that!" Yoshino said. "Metaphorically. I'm not saving you from anything. If anything, it's the other way around."

Uchida let the statement hang in the air for a moment, feeling suddenly too lethargic for any energetic discussions.

"I don't think you understand the metaphor right," she said, finally, still looking at the ceiling.

"And why not?" Yoshino asked.

Uchida shook her head.

"I'm tired," she said. "And I want to sleep. You know how it is. It's caught up with me all at once."

"Just tell me!" Yoshino insisted.

Uchida turned her head to look at her.

"You'll get it, if you think about it. I don't feel like saying embarrassing things right now. "

"That's a rather strange hang-up to have, given the circumstances."

Uchida stared at her pointedly.

"Alright, fine," Yoshino said, pulling up the sheets to cover them both, clearly feeling a little chilly. "Next topic then."

"Another topic?" Uchida sighed.

"I know you must have snuck around the front gate and done some tremendous climbing to get up here—"

"Which is why I'm tired and sleepy," Uchida said dryly.

"Funny that," Yoshino said, putting her finger to her face and looking upward with her eyes, making a deliberately introspective expression. "You didn't seem tired at all earlier. In fact, you seemed positively energetic."

"Can we skip the jokes and hurry it up?" Uchida asked, letting her exasperation leak into her voice.

Yoshino looked at her, reading in her demeanor that, yes, she was seriously tired.

"What I want to know," Yoshino began, implicitly conceding, "is what the rest of your strategy was. What did you tell your parents, for example?"

Uchida waited before responding. She didn't like where this was going.

"That I was sleeping over at Chiaki's," Uchida said. "I already told her to cover for me."

"Right, okay." Yoshino agreed. "Sounds reasonable. The more serious question is, how the hell do you plan to explain yourself tomorrow? Sneaking back out is out of the question, and I doubt we'll get Arisawa's cooperation, so…"

Uchida tensed. The last thing she wanted was to be reminded just how much trouble she was in store for in the morning. She had just wanted to sleep, and forget about it…

"I have no idea," Uchida said point-blank.

"I thought so," Yoshino said.

She paused briefly before adding:

"You know, the first thing that's going to happen is that they're going to call your parents about what you did, and then the whole thing breaks apart."

"Don't remind me," Uchida replied.

She let Yoshino look at her for a moment.

"I know I'm not going to be able to cover up my being here. That wasn't something I concerned myself with. I knew the chance would be worth it. I didn't plan an exit strategy."

Yoshino thought, then smiled slightly.

"Alright, fair enough. But you know, it'd make things easier for me, too, if we could sneak you back out."

"Then think of something," Uchida suggested peevishly.

"Mind hiding inside a car trunk?" Yoshino asked, after a moment.

"Yes," Uchida said. "Also, I don't have my uniform with me. Also—"

"Wait, you mean to tell me you told them you were staying at Chiaki's and you didn't _pack anything_?" Yoshino asked incredulously.

Uchida froze mid-gesture.

"Well, I mean, how could I?" she asked. "How was I supposed to carry it?"

"Tell me you at least pretended and hid your stuff somewhere," Yoshino groaned.

Uchida grimaced.

"No. And while I'm confessing my mistakes, I also may have given my parents the impression I was sick, so—"

"So they'd be even more likely to check up on you," Yoshino finished drily.

Uchida decided she should pout. Yoshino looked at her, considering.

"Well, whatever," Yoshino said, accepting the admittance of fault, returning to a reclining position. "Even given all of that, they're unlikely to notice anything too amiss, not if Chiaki tells them everything is fine. We should be okay."

"You sure?" Uchida asked.

"No," Yoshino said. "But I'm feeling lethargic."

Uchida waited a moment, considering.

"Any chance you have some food stored in your room that isn't alcoholic?" Uchida asked, finally, figuring she might as well.

Yoshino shook her head.

"Not a thing," she said.

"It's like I always said," Uchida complained. "What kind of girl doesn't have any snacks in her room?"

"One with discipline," Yoshino replied automatically, echoing the old argument.

Uchida made sure her face looked extra peeved.

"Just sleep," Yoshino suggested. "I'll set the alarm so we can wake up early and clean up."

"You mean hide the evidence," Uchida said.

"Yes," Yoshino agreed.

Uchida closed her eyes, getting ready to settle in, but she felt Yoshino shift her weight towards her, embracing her, placing her chin next to Uchida's nose. Uchida's eyes snapped open.

"You i—idiot!" she spluttered, face burning, nose filled with the smell of Yoshino's hair. "How am I supposed to sleep like this?"

"I'm sure you'll find a way," Yoshino said. "Or do you want me to point out how illogical it is for you to be embarrassed by this after everything else we've done?"

Yoshino looked down at her with that insufferable smile of hers.

"I hate you," Uchida said, closing her eyes.

"Of course you do," Yoshino said.

Uchida intended to grumble a bit longer, she really did, but she didn't manage another word.

* * *

A loud knock to the door shocked Uchida awake.

She looked up, finding Yoshino already up and sitting, holding her blanket over her chest, glaring at the door as if she intended to melt it with her gaze.

A louder, more insistent knock, as Uchida checked the time. It had been barely half an hour.

"Can you open up?" the voice on the other side of the door wanted to know. "You have a phone call!"

Yoshino cursed.

"What could it possibly be?" she asked rhetorically.

With a sweeping motion, she flung the sheet aside and jumped off the bed, stooping to pick up her clothes from where they had been suggestively scattered on the floor and bed.

Overcoming her initial surprise, Uchida followed suit, diving off the bed to do her share.

"What do—" she began.

"Take your clothes, hide in the closet," Yoshino said. "I'll take care of the bottles and my violin, and I'll pretend I just got in the shower."

"Right," Uchida said, ignoring yet another insistent query from the doorway.

Yoshino stood up and pulled open the drawer of her sidetable, hurriedly depositing bottle and cup into it, with no time to properly wash the cup and stash the bottle in her bag.

Yoshino slammed the drawer shut and Uchida dashed for the closet, sliding the door closed behind her.

Yoshino hurriedly put the bedsheets back in some vague semblance of order, then ran for the bathroom and turned on the faucet. She hastily splashed the water onto her face and hair, and pulled a towel off the rack to cover herself with.

She stepped out of the room just as her door opened, her servant finally electing to use her key.

For some reason, the woman stared at her, as if confused.

"Ah, so you were in the shower," the woman said.

"Obviously," Yoshino said, invoking all the acting skills she could muster. "Didn't you hear the water?"

She shifted slightly, making sure a couple of drops of water came off her face.

"Now what's so important you're unwilling to unlock my door to get in here?" she asked indignantly. "I could barely you hear you from in there."

"Phone call," her guardian said, holding up the receiver for her. "Yuka's father."

It took all she had to keep from showing her surprise and fear. Instead—

"Really? This is _that_ important? Couldn't you have told him to wait?" she asked, managing to sound reproachful. She felt like she should win some sort of acting prize.

"I figured it was, given the circumstances," the woman explained calmly, not bothering to explain what "circumstances" she was talking about.

Yoshino forced herself to make an annoyed grunt. That was the right reaction, after all—the sound of her conceding that her servant had a good point. If she didn't do it, her behavior would seem off. And she certainly couldn't panic, like she wanted to.

She took the receiver and placed it to her ear.

"Hello?" she said.

She did her best to conceal her trepidation as they exchanged greetings.

"Anyway, the reason I called…" the voice on the other end began.

She involuntarily sucked in a breath.

"Yuka told us she is staying over at Minami-san's today? Is that true? It seems a bit unusual that she would go without you."

_Damn. It's just like I thought. They noticed._

"Yes, of course it's true," she lied smoothly.

She paused.

"After all, I don't know if you've realized," she continued, sounding deliberately awkward, "but we're not on the best of terms right now. It's natural that we wouldn't go together this time."

This completed the plausible cover story.

"Yes, she told us," Uchida's father said blandly.

Yoshino puzzled over the situation in her head. She decided she had to ask.

"If you don't me asking," she began. "Why are you calling me? Why not just call Chiaki?"

"I wanted to hear it from you. Ah, well, clearly I'm being overly worried."

The man chuckled.

"An overly protective father, that's what I am."

It didn't ring true, and they both knew it.

_As if I don't have enough to worry about, _Yoshino thought resignedly.

"Well, I'm sorry to waste your time," he said.

"No, it's alright."

That ended the conversation.

Yoshino handed the receiver back.

"If that's all it was," she said. "Couldn't it have waited? Or did you not ask him what it was about?"

"I didn't ask," her servant said, smiling slightly and taking the phone.

Somehow, Yoshino knew she was lying. But why would she lie?

_She must suspect that Uchida is here,_ Yoshino thought.

She felt sick to her stomach, sincerely hoping her head servant wouldn't come up with some excuse to search the closet.

But she kept her face bland.

"Alright," she said. "If you don't mind, can I go back to my shower?"

She tried to imply with her body language, as strongly as possible, that she wanted her out of the room.

Her servant nodded, and turned to leave.

She breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

That was when Arisawa showed up in the doorway.

When he saw her, he automatically glanced away from her toweled form out of modesty.

"What is it, Arisawa-san?" her guardian asked, voice quiet.

He looked at Yoshino, then took a breath.

"We checked the security camera feeds, as requested. It is as you thought. She is in the building."

Yoshino swore to herself mentally.

_I just hope Uchida was smart enough to put her clothes back on. Or, at least, to figure out to do that now._

Her mother-of-sorts turned around, and Yoshino opened her mouth to admit that Uchida was in the closet.

Instead, she froze—the expression on the woman's face, instead of being angry and stern, looked profoundly worried.

Before she had time to react, the woman strode forward and put her hand on Yoshino's head, feeling around in her hair.

"Your hair isn't wet," she said, sounding betrayed. "Not at the roots, only superficially. You can't have been in the shower."

"I just got in—" Yoshino began.

But the woman wasn't listening. Instead, she turned and headed for the bed, leaning over to examine the pillows.

"Awful lot of long hair stuck here," her mother stated flatly, running her hand over the pillow. "And the sheets are rumpled. That's rather interesting, given that I've never known the two of you to sleep this early."

Given that someone changed the sheets and pillow covers every day, this was strongly suggestive.

Yoshino swallowed covertly.

"Well, we just thought, you know, there wasn't really anything to do, and—"

"So you admit she's here?" her mother queried.

Yoshino let out a breath.

"Yes, I mean you checked the _cameras_," she said. "I can't argue with video footage. You might as well come out, Yuka."

There was a protracted silence, then the sound of the closet door sliding open.

Uchida stepped out, looking down at the ground and wringing her hands. It was very obvious that her clothes had been thrown on hastily, and she had buttoned the top of her shirt incorrectly.

"Sorry to intrude," she said, not looking at anyone's face, shuffling over next to Yoshino.

"Is it really such a big deal?" Yoshino asserted, suddenly feeling awkward in her towel. "I mean, so she lied about where she was going, and she snuck in here. No harm done, and we've made up, so I don't even want to keep her out anymore. You would have found out tomorrow morning anyway. At most, her parents are mad at her for lying. I'll take the punishment for hiding her, and even let you take her home if you want, but overall, it's a tempest in a teacup."

The words poured out of her in a torrent, and she straightened her posture to project strength. Nothing here was provable, even if the circumstantial evidence was strong. Audacious denial might well be the way to go.

Arisawa looked as if he rather agreed with the idea of driving Uchida home, but didn't say anything, maintaining his policy of relative professionalism.

"No," her mother said.

She turned around, and Yoshino saw only a slight trace of anger. Instead, what predominated was a mix of disappointment and steely determination.

"I've let this go on long enough," she said coldly. "I was willing to tolerate it as long as you two didn't step over the line, even if you did choose to ignore my hints. But _this_. You think I can overlook this? I thought you were smarter than that. That's where the line _is_."

"Overlook what?" Yoshino asked, gritting her teeth. She was lost, but she would be damned before she would go down without a fight.

"I won't dignify that with a response," her mother said, glaring back at her.

They stood there, Uchida clinging to Yoshino's arm, Arisawa with face frozen stiff.

"I thought I raised you better than this," her mother said, finally, expression losing its hardness. "I thought I had—"

The woman stopped, struggling to finish the sentence, face flickering through a series of different emotions—pain, anger, frustration—and Yoshino realized that she, the woman she had always thought of her one true parent, was losing control, swiftly and suddenly, as unexpected as an avalanche.

"I wouldn't believe it," she said quietly. "Even though the evidence was everywhere. There was no _proof_, and I kept thinking, maybe if I tweak things, drop some hints, things would work out."

Yoshino took a step backward. Not once in her memory had her mother ever lost control like this. The self-control was something that she had always admired, something she herself had never managed.

"I've given so much to this," the woman said, and her voice was heart-wrenching. "I've always thought that it will all be worth it, to see you happy and strong and mature. That was all the Old Man wanted, to see you grow up normal and fulfilled, not weak like your father or abusive and crazy like the rest of your family. That's all I want."

The tears had started flowing, but with an effort of will, her mother pulled her composure together temporarily.

"Just listen to what I'm saying," she forced out, talking venomously to herself. "What I'm telling you. Maybe I'm not good enough for this after all. He thought I could do it, but look what's happened, under my guidance. My own daughter, sleeping with other girls! What am I doing?"

None of them even considered challenging her use of the word "daughter".

"Yoshino-san!" Arisawa said, face pained, breaking his own rule about intervening. "It's not true, is it? I defended you! I told her she was wrong! Tell me this is a misunder…"

He stopped, stymied by the look on Yoshino and Uchida's faces, and by the facts of the situation.

Then her mother nodded to herself, finding some inner steel to draw upon.

"I've made a mistake," she said, wiping off her face. "I've been far too lenient. None of this should have ever happened. Enough of this. _You_—"

She pointed at Uchida, the fire in her eyes causing Uchida to quail.

"_Get out_," she growled.

They stood there, frozen.

Feet treading against the carpet, Uchida stepped back and began walking towards Arisawa.

Yoshino grabbed her arm.

"No," she began. "This isn't right. Mother—"

"Don't you dare argue," her mother said.

Uchida pulled at Yoshino's arm desperately, signaling that she was willing to go.

Yoshino tried to think of what to say.

"Have you forgotten _who_—" she began.

—_is in charge here?_ she wanted to finish, but the words died stillborn on her lips. That was a step too far. She wouldn't risk that rupture.

Unlike an actual daughter, she had ultimate authority, but it wasn't one she could ever seriously use—not without potentially catastrophic consequences.

Arisawa glanced between the two of them, and Yoshino could see on his face the anguish of thinking that, for the first time ever, he might have to choose sides.

"Alright," Yoshino said, taking a breath to calm herself, stepping back from the brink with an effort. "She can go, but I don't think I want to stay here tonight. I'll stay with one of my friends, and come back tomorrow, when we're calmer."

She forced the words out, levelly and painfully.

"No, you aren't," her mother said firmly.

"It wasn't a _request_," Yoshino growled.

The two of them glared at each other, anger admixed with potent amounts of desperation of despair.

"Are you going to forbid it?" Yoshino asked quietly.

She placed to onus on her chief servant to call her bluff by risking the direct clash of power. She had no idea what she would do if she actually did. She held her breath.

"Fine," her mother spat. "Go. But I expect to see you here tomorrow at noon, without _her_. And call me when you get wherever you're going."

"School—" Arisawa began, after a brief pause.

"She's suspended!" she said. "Have you forgotten? Take them out of my sight!"

The woman turned and stormed out of the room.

A moment later, Arisawa bowed out of the room, and Yoshino followed. Uchida turned for the office, but Yoshino pulled her out of the room with her.

She ordered the first unfortunate maid she found—Nakanawa—to pack her bags for a one night stay, and to grab Uchida's jacket and other accoutrements off of her office chair. It was mean of her, to bluntly exercise power like that, but she needed to empty her emotion on _something_.

Then she headed for the car garage, trusting that the bags would follow her there.

In the distance, she could hear faint weeping.

* * *

_Author's note: Before writing these sections, I reviewed my internal plot diagram…and realized just what the hell was going to have to go into it. Even now, I can't read it to myself with a calm face. Ah well._

_Next chapter will probably take just as long as these last two since…it will also be quite long, and I'm still just as busy. Unfortunate…_


	4. Disorderly Retreat

"Permission to speak freely?"

Yoshino stirred from the introspective silence into which she had lapsed.

She looked around. The interior of the car was a world of contrasts: between the darkness reinforced by the shaded side windows, and the staccato lights of the city pouring in through the front windshield. At her right, Uchida watched her, her expression indiscernible in the gloom.

Yoshino sighed.

"You always have it, Arisawa," she said. "You know that."

"Formally, though?" he asked, not turning his eyes from the road, eyes shrouded by the cap he always wore.

"Then yes, formally," she said, hesitating only briefly.

Arisawa insisting on "permission" was never the start of a relaxing conversation.

"It was a terrible thing to do," he said, voice deliberately level.

Yoshino clenched her teeth.

"Obviously I know that," she said. "It wasn't exactly a paradigm of good decision-making. But what's done is done."

Arisawa shook his head slightly.

"I'm sure I don't need to explain to you all the reasons it wasn't a good idea, both for you and Uchida-san. But…"

He fell silent, and Yoshino wished it were possible to see his face directly to read his expression.

"It was a terrible shock, you know," he continued finally. "To her. To all of us. I told her she was wrong about you two, but I see now that I was being willfully blind. We all were."

He took a breath, gathering the willpower to say it.

"When you were a child, you once told me you wanted us to be your family. I don't know if you still think that, but I've certainly done my best, as much as possible."

He gathered his thoughts.

"For you to fall short would reflect on us—no, not just that. It would hurt us. We've been waiting for you to take on your family's mantle, to take the seat your father left so conspicuously empty, to make the Yoshino name great again. It was once a household name. Now it is an afterthought."

He paused.

"It's an exceedingly selfish thing to say," he continued. "But it's not just about you. I think you forget sometimes. Some of us have invested our lives here. I—"

He stopped, and Yoshino became suddenly aware that his voice, normally professional and detached, had been steadily growing more emotional.

"What does any of that even have to do with this?" Uchida began. "You can't—"

Yoshino cut her off with a hand gesture.

"I know," Yoshino responded. "I do forget, sometimes, but I think I'm still young enough that I can justify it, a little."

He didn't respond.

"You love her, don't you?" she asked quietly.

At her side, Uchida sucked in a sharp breath.

Her driver straightened his cap.

"Yes," he said. "But I don't delude myself."

He chuckled drily.

"How do I put this…" he began, taking a breath.

"There's someone in her heart already," he said, "and I know that, no matter what I do, her little girl will always be more important than me. I'm just an old codger who fell in love with the new hire."

Yoshino cast her eyes downward, so that she felt, rather than saw, him smile wanly.

"I'm okay with it, though," he finished. "What can I say?"

A few minutes passed in silence.

"If it's not too much to ask…" Uchida began.

Yoshino sat up and turned to look at her.

"What are you two talking about?" Uchida asked. "What is this about household names and all that?"

"You see?" Arisawa commented sourly. "The younger generation has no idea anymore."

"Alright, I'm sorry for cutting you off earlier," Yoshino said. "But there's a lot you don't know, still, I would have explained it to you earlier, but…"

She cleared her throat.

"I already told you about the will and all of that, so you should know that I can't wield my full inheritance without finding someone to marry," Yoshino said somberly and carefully. "But that's not all of it. It's only the start. I did some research when I found out about all this. Looked at some records, that sort of thing."

"The family businesses are collapsing," she continued. "They at least managed to tread water until the big downturn in the 80s, but since then, it's been nothing but slow disintegration. Red ink everywhere and, without leadership, the subsidiaries do nothing but backbite each other. A few have already gone bankrupt."

"It's a mess," she finished. "I'll be able to live comfortably no matter what happens, but I can't help but feel it's my responsibility, somehow."

Yoshino clasped her hands, kicking her heels together, feeling again that the world was too big for her.

"Many now ask: 'Where is the family? Where are the owners? How could they let it fall apart like this?'" Arisawa explained. "Only a few of the directors know the true state of things, or even whom among the family is still alive. The mistress's existence here is a well-kept secret. But even those who knew what's going on, those who know that all they have to rely on now is a fifteen-year-old girl from a degenerate family, are eager to see her take responsibility. They left us alone in the past, but the moment we mentioned that she wanted to see some records, we started receiving a flood of inquiries on her status, her health, her academics, things like that. It's been nothing but telephone call after telephone call. Some of them even asked for a personal meeting."

Yoshino heard Uchida inhale to say something.

"I've put them on hold, for now," Yoshino explained, before she could start. "They're desperate. The moment I'm old enough, they want me as a figurehead, even if it turns out that's all I'm good for. Corporate unity, for whatever that's worth."

"But even given all that, they're not likely to accept someone who doesn't even own anything in the companies involved," Arisawa continued. "It'd spark dissent. Ownership is necessary. And that requires—"

"—marriage," Yoshino finished. "I don't get any of it until I marry, because that's what the will says. And it's not just that. How many corporate leaders in Japan do you know who are female? The workers, the board, the media, will demand at least a husband, a male presence somewhere, to reassure them."

She swallowed.

"Even my parents' sudden reappearance might have something to do with this. They've never shown any signs of caring before, but why else would they suddenly show up, demand I transfer to a better school, demand I start scouting the marriage market? It's all rather too convenient."

She shook her head sadly.

"I don't really believe that," she said. "Somehow I can't see them caring about the family legacy, not after all that happened before. But then why? Is it what you suggested, that they remember me after all these years? That they care again? I'm not sure I want them to."

She looked up, at the sunroof.

"And that's how it is. Funny how, even in this day and age, people still believe in princes and scions. I really wish they didn't."

Uchida's expression was shrouded by the darkness.

"Do you think you can handle all that?" she asked. "I had no idea. It's—it's like…"

Her voice trailed off.

"I don't know," Yoshino said, looking out her window. "I don't know. But expectations are high."

She picked at a stitch in the leather seating with her fingernail.

"So many people are depending on me. I can't let them down. That's not who I am. But I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I don't know what my life will be like. Even if everything works out with the schools, in the long run, even if I stay here, I—I don't know how I can keep you."

Yoshino hoped that her bangs, carefully cultivated, were doing a good job of hiding her face.

"But I—" Uchida began. "I—I don't want—"

She stopped.

Yoshino knew what Uchida must fear: that Yoshino's life-course was already determined, and it had no room for a girl named Uchida Yuka. She didn't know how to prove that fear wrong.

"I wanted to tell you, earlier," Yoshino said, "but there was just so much, the sheer _magnitude_ of it all. There was so much to tell, and I was so tired, and then you, uh—"

She hesitated, shifting uneasily.

"Well…you didn't really give me a chance to…what with the…well, since—"

Arisawa cleared his throat loudly, cannily realizing from Yoshino's tone of voice where the topic had gone.

"We're here," he said sharply, looking away to hide embarrassment. "Just a reminder."

The car had indeed been stopped for quite a while, Yoshino realized.

"There's no need for you to get off," Arisawa said, when Yoshino moved to unbuckle herself.

Her cowardly fears told her to do as Arisawa said, but how could she leave Uchida alone? How could she even consider something like that?

_Why am I scared? What's wrong with me?_

_No. I dragged her into this. I won't let her suffer like this, not alone. I'll find a way to make it all better. Somehow._

She clenched her hands, painfully swallowing her anxiety.

"I'll be back soon," Yoshino said. "There's some things I need to say."

She could feel Uchida's eyes watching her, and was glad that she couldn't see them, that Uchida probably couldn't see the conflict on her face.

Arisawa turned in his seat to look at her, eyes glimmering.

"Alright," he said.

* * *

Uchida's father struggled against his wife's anger, and the weight of recent revelations.

"You mean to tell me you knew? That you were keeping it from me?" she demanded.

"No, of course not!" he shot back. "Are you paying attention at all? I told you. I had some concerns, I shared them with Yoshino-san's servant, we discussed it. That's all. I just thought it was suspicious, the way Yuka left today."

"So you discussed it with her before discussing it with me," she repeated bitterly. "And here I thought we were married with kids. But I guess I'm not important enough to discuss your concerns with."

"I did discuss it with you!" he said. "You said—"

"I thought you were joking!" she said. "That's what you made it seem like."

"Look, I just didn't want to be flinging unfounded suspicions around. Imagine if I had been wrong, then—"

"I would have overreacted, is that it? I would have acted all hysterical, gone about it with no tact—are you stupid? I told you before, stop disrespecting me like—"

"Well, _maybe_, if you'd stop losing your calm like this," he began, his voice escalating. "Then I would—"

She held up a hand to silence him, ears pricking at the sound of the lock in the front door turning. He stopped immediately.

"What the hell do we do?" she asked, eyes meeting his, their mutual anger dissolving instantly. "We spent so long arguing about this that we're not even ready."

"We do what comes naturally," he said decisively, turning to head towards the doorway.

_Because I have no idea what else to do_, he appended privately.

* * *

For a moment, they were able to hold on to absurd hope.

After all, no one stood waiting at the door for Uchida to come home. They opened the door to a completely empty sitting room and kitchen. Perhaps Uchida's parents hadn't been informed after all, and Yoshino's household had preserved secrecy. If that were really true, all that was necessary was to finagle an explanation about why Uchida was home suddenly, and with Yoshino, to boot. Yes, they stretched plausibility more and more with each lie, but any amount of suspicion from her parents was better than the reality of what could lie in front of them.

And then her parents emerged from their bedroom, and their faces told them to lose all hope.

Uchida dropped her bag—packed by Yoshino's maid full of her jackets and boots—next to the door, bracing for the worst.

"You've got quite the nerve to show up here," her mother said, watching Yoshino intensely, voice as cold as icicles.

Uchida was visibly frightened of her mother's face, which displayed a frozen anger she hadn't seen since…ever.

Nonetheless, she swallowed hard and spoke up.

"L—look, it's not her fault. I—"

"Shut up," her mother snapped, and she recoiled—but not enough to evade the woman's grasp.

Her mother grabbed her by the arm and pulled her bodily behind her.

Yoshino dug through her emotional reserves, keeping her face expressionless.

Her father appeared over his wife's other shoulder.

"It _is_ pretty bold of you," he said, "to show up and expect us to tolerate you, I've got to admit that. Don't tell me you were expecting to stay the night here. That's just plain unrealistic."

"Hate me if you want," Yoshino said, managing even to sound arrogant. "Place all your blame on me. It's better that way. This is entirely my fault. Remember that. "

"No!" Uchida said, shoving her mother aside, trying to step forward. "That's not why you're here! Look—"

She turned to face her parents, as if she could somehow shield Yoshino from their condemning looks.

Yoshino held her gaze fixed with effort. Her previous statement had been half-hearted, because she knew Uchida would never stand for it. Still, it was worth trying.

Uchida gestured at Yoshino with one hand.

"She's here because she cares. She's not a bad girl. I—If I had noticed sooner—"

She struggled with the words, voice shaking, and looked down. Thus, she didn't see her parents eyes soften, infinitesimally, before hardening again.

But Yoshino did.

_They still love her. They are who I thought they were. I guess that's good enough._

She turned to leave.

"I'm not welcome here," she said, walking towards the door. "See you tomorrow, Yuka . Be well."

"Wait!" Uchida exclaimed, turning, restrained by her father's hand on her shoulder.

It turned out to be unnecessary, as Yoshino spun immediately back around and grabbed Uchida's hands within hers, uncaring of the audience, regretful she hadn't mounted the courage to say what she wanted to say before leaving the car.

"Yuka, whatever happens," she said, words rushed. "I promise you I'll think of a way out of all this. Somehow. That's—"

Making a pained expression, she struggled to continue, before giving up and dashing for the door.

Uchida was left blinking in her wake.

Finally, she nodded to herself.

_See you tomorrow._

* * *

"Young mistress?" Arisawa asked, a minute or so into the drive onward.

"Yes?" Yoshino asked, looking down at her knees. The dark gloom suited her mood perfectly.

"Are you alright?"

"I am," she said, hesitating only slightly.

There was a period of silence which Yoshino was perfectly happy to let stretch on.

"Are you sure?" Arisawa asked finally.

"Yes," Yoshino said, this time decisively.

She waited to see if he would say anything further.

" Forgive me if I'm being too forward, but honestly, I'd feel much better if you started crying," Arisawa said. "That's what I would expect, after all. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone."

He risked a glance backward, his expression making it clear that he was trying to lighten the mood.

Yoshino smiled slightly.

"As if I would cry in front of you," she said.

"That's hurtful," Arisawa said flippantly. "Consider my feelings. Why, I remember when you were young, er—"

Arisawa stopped himself, his attempt at cheering her up running into a brick wall.

"I never did cry, did I?" Yoshino said, slightly mockingly.

"Only twice," Arisawa said, with a trace of sadness. "And I remember both times."

"And that's how it will stay," Yoshino asserted.

The car slowed to a stop at a signal light. Yoshino expected the conversation to end there, but Arisawa surprised her.

"You were such a strange child," he said. "I don't think I've ever heard of any like you."

"I wasn't exactly happy about being different," Yoshino commented.

Another long pause.

"I always thought you were unnaturally calm," Arisawa said. "I used to wonder if you were really that calm, or if you were just bottling it up. I expected it to all explode some day. I waited years and years, and it never happened. I guess I was wrong."

He hesitated a moment.

"But are you really alright?" he asked. "You're under a tremendous amount of stress."

"You want to know why I was so calm?" Yoshino asked, addressing only the first issue. "That was why Yuka was there. She's stress relief."

Yoshino paused thoughtfully.

"Any innuendo you might see there was unintentional, yet probably still true," she added.

Arisawa snorted.

"Times change, don't they?" he said. "My parents would have locked me up for years for vaguer implications than that. Now, in some countries, it's not even all that eye-raising."

"There's no guarantee that isn't happening to Yuka right now as we speak," Yoshino rebuked.

"Right, right, that was careless of me," Arisawa apologized.

Arisawa flashed a dirty look at a driver who had cut him off. Yoshino couldn't say she blamed the other man; Arisawa was driving at a snail's pace.

"And these eccentric friends of yours," Arisawa said a moment later. "Is it a coincidence they're all so strange?"

"What is it, Arisawa?" Yoshino asked, annoyed and slightly worried. "Why are we sitting here, digging around in my psychology? What kind of question is that to ask?"

It was unlike him to be so rudely inquisitive.

Arisawa stiffened, picking up on her displeasure.

"I apologize," he said, voice suddenly torn, "but I'm worried for you. I just want to make sure you're alright. The pressure you're under should break a girl your age, yet you keep insisting you're fine. I'd be a lot more confident in that if I understood why."

She was surprised as he jerked the car over to the curb suddenly, pulling over, even though they were nowhere near their destination.

He put both his gloved hands on the top of the steering wheel, abandoning his driving position.

"I'm just trying to understand you," he said, turning to look at her. "Monitoring you is one of my secondary duties, but even if it weren't for that…"

He shook his head ruefully.

"None of us understands you well enough to be confident in your happiness. The Boss loves you as her own daughter, yet you remain a closed book, even to her. I just want to understand you."

He stared forward.

"I don't understand what's with you and Uchida-san. I don't understand what you think about your future. I don't understand why it's so hard for you to speak to your parents. If I had an understanding, perhaps I could help. Perhaps _she _could help."

Yoshino stayed silent.

"Right now the Boss is still too confused to think clearly, but when she finally does, she'll be as worried as I am. I'm confident in that. And then she will want to ask the same questions."

"You don't have to talk to me," he added, a moment later. "But please, at least talk to her. Seriously talk to her. She is your mother, for all intents and purposes. Despite all that happened today, she's still there for you. I know that it is difficult to see how things will be, after today, but that's still true. Maybe, somewhere in all this, there's a way out."

"I have a hard time imagining one," Yoshino said bitterly, finally.

She took a breath.

"I love her as a mother, too," Yoshino said. "You know that. That's why it hurts so much, that all this had to happen. But if I understood myself well enough to answer your questions, that alone would solve much of my problems."

Arisawa turned, watching her.

"But alright," Yoshino concede, before he could say anything. "I'll try asking her for advice. I promised tomorrow at noon, didn't I?"

She smiled painfully.

"Thank you," Arisawa said.

* * *

It was Touma herself who opened the door, thankfully. They watched each other, Touma's face silhouetted by the lights behind her.

Touma knew to expect her, of course. Yoshino owned a cell phone.

"You'll have to forgive my brothers," Touma said, as Yoshino crossed the threshold. "You came rather late, so they're asleep."

"It's alright," Yoshino said.

Touma grabbed her bags, despite her protests.

"We also can't share rooms, unfortunately," Touma said, leading the way up the wooden stairs. "You see, I'm banned from sharing rooms with any girls."

"I see," Yoshino said, after a pause.

"So I take it you've both got some parent issues?" Touma asked, looking back with one eye.

Yoshino stayed silent.

"Ah, you don't have to talk about it if you don't want," Touma amended hastily, as they reached the top.

"They took it about as well as you'd expect," Yoshino said.

Touma stopped, pushing open a door leading to the small guest room.

"How bad?" Touma asked, watching her from the corner of her eye.

"Oh, I've got parent issues alright," she said, brushing by Touma into the room. "Among other things, I can't decide how many I have, or even who they are."

Touma looked at her with a puzzled expression, but Yoshino wasn't going to enlighten her.

"It's nothing I can talk about," she said, placing her bags on the floor near the bed.

"Do you want to talk anyway?" Touma asked. "About other things, that is. It's not as if any of my brothers are actually awake to check on what I'm doing."

Yoshino thought about it.

"Why not?" she said. "But, honestly, the only thing I can see you maybe helping with is in dealing with Uchida's parents."

Touma smiled.

"Even that is something," she said, turning back for the door. "Expect me, then. Unlike you, I'm polite enough to ask first."

Yoshino snorted.

"There's extra towels in the hall cupboard if you need them," Touma said, waving her hand in the right direction.

The door closed with a thud.

A moment later, Yoshino collapsed on the bed, turning to look at the ceiling.

_I have no idea what to do, do I?_

* * *

Uchida swallowed hard before turning around.

"I'll just go straight to my room then," she asserted meekly, without daring to glance up at her parents faces.

She headed for the back of the house, walking briskly.

She only got three steps before feeling her father grab her shoulder.

She let out a breath. Well, it had been worth a shot.

"Don't think you can get off that easily, _Uchida_," her father said, scowling down at her. "We're talking about this."

Uchida turned and looked at their faces. Yes, they were angry, but not quite as fiercely as they had been earlier.

It occurred to her that they had been acting a little, to scare Yoshino.

…which didn't help her at all, considering they still looked quite angry.

_I'm still going to get my head chewed off, _she thought morbidly.

Her mother gestured with a hand, and the three filed over to the sitting room, seating themselves carefully around the kotatsu in the middle.

Uchida looked around meekly, at her father studying her with his eyes, and at her mother, looking at her as if she were some exotic animal.

It was not a pleasant experience.

"How much do you know?" she asked quietly, finally.

_It's a great probing question_, Yoshino had said once, long ago, drilling her on the finer points of arguing with her parents. _People are always more than willing to yell at you about just what exactly you did wrong—and then you can make sure not to mention anything they don't talk about._

That had been for much more innocent topics, though.

"That you lied to us about where you were going," her mother said, falling into the question easily. "That you risked your life in the snow and cold. That Yoshino's servant found the two of you in bed together, and I don't mean sleeping."

_That's basically everything,_ Uchida thought, grimacing.

Uchida briefly considered pointing out that what her mother had said was an exaggeration: that, technically, there had only been really strong circumstantial evidence. There was no point to it, however; she wasn't going to deny it, since they wouldn't believe her, so why waste everyone's time on technicalities?

Her mother leaned forward onto her elbows, putting her head in both hands, and Uchida could see that she was not merely angry, but worried and confused.

"Why?" her mother asked. "Even though I said all that to Yoshino-chan, it can't possibly have been all her, could it? So why?"

Her mother's eyes were beseeching, almost begging Uchida to say that no, it really was all Yoshino's malign influence.

"Of course not," Uchida said painfully, knowing she couldn't avoid telling the truth. "There's no way it could be."

"I don't understand," her mother said, to herself more than to Uchida. "Is there something we did wrong? I never imagined—my own daughter—"

She made an inchoate gesture.

Her father looked at his wife, then back at her.

"What were you thinking, doing something like this?" he asked, eyes hard.

Uchida looked down at her hands, and made a show of shrugging.

"You know how it's been between us, these past couple of days. I was only trying to do what you told me. I snuck in, and I made her tell me. I know it was risky, but I did everything I could to avoid danger. I even took mom's cell phone, just in case. I know there's reception up there."

To accentuate this last point, she pulled the missing cell phone out of her pocket and placed it on the table.

"That's what I thought," he said. "And that, on its own, was acceptable, though I never would have admitted it. But you know that's not what I was talking about."

"What do you want me to say?" Uchida said miserably, after a moment. "It's not something that's very much about _thinking_. It's just what we wanted to do. I was just so happy after making up with her, and then…"

Her voice trailed off, and she squeezed her eyes shut, clenching her hands to keep the sudden memories from overwhelming her.

She took a deep breath. She couldn't let blame accrue to Yoshino, regardless of what it mean for her. Besides that, her parents also deserved to know a bit more of the truth, if only to prevent any misconceptions.

"For what it's worth, I started it this time," she said, looking at the ground next to her. "So don't blame her."

"_This time?_" her mother asked incredulously.

Uchida nodded, eyes shut.

"So there must be some real lust involved here," her father said thoughtfully, his sonorous voice ringing in her ears. "It can't be just a one-time experiment."

"How could you suggest something like that?" her mother asked.

Uchida stayed silent, out of both mortification and fear, but managed to turn her head back to watch her father with wary eyes.

"Let me check right to the chase, then," he said, pressing onward. "Are you attracted to boys?"

"Of course she is!" her mother said, glaring at him with sharp eyes. "She's the one who's always joking about getting a boyfriend and things like that. Don't you remember the prince?"

"I don't know," Uchida contradicted. "I've never had any crushes, nor have I ever really been attracted to any of the boys in my class. All those jokes—I was just playing around, really."

She tugged at her pants nervously.

"I've gotten my share of love letters," she explained, "but I've never seriously considered any them. None of those boys really interested me, so I turned them down. It was fun to talk about and gossip but I never really felt the attraction, even to the ones my classmates drooled over. It was just a game, really. You should have seen their faces when I turned down that one soccer player…"

She let her voice trail off. Despite the situation, it felt good to get it off her chest, all these thoughts she had been keeping from everyone—even her mother, even Yoshino.

"Sometimes, I wondered about it," she continued, looking up warily. "I thought about asking you, but I really didn't want to. Honestly, I never thought about it too deeply. I just assumed I wasn't old enough, or I wasn't ready."

"But if I'm old enough to lust after my own best friend, then how can I not be old enough?"

She swallowed, letting the question hang in the air, the two of them studying her with strange, pained looks, her mother especially.

It took her a moment to realize what it was.

Her mother was looking at her with the same look she used on her friends, the first time Uchida brought them to the house. It was a searching look, one meant to evaluate someone she had never met before. Here, it was spliced with hurt, as if she couldn't believe that she had to look at her own daughter with those eyes.

Uchida had never seen it directed at her before, and it tore her to see.

"I've heard enough," her father said suddenly, decisively, grabbing both their attentions.

"You're grounded for a week," he said, "for lying to us and pulling a stunt like that. And another week for sleeping with someone without, you know, at least hinting it to us or something. I'd make some comment about using protection or something like that, but obviously that isn't relevant here. Let's be thankful for that, at least."

He spoke levelly, and her eyes were firm, but his fingers tapped the tabletop nervously.

"As for Yoshino, we can't realistically keep you two from seeing each other at school," he said. "But no more of this nonsense of sleeping together, or even in the same room. If she visits, you're going to be sleeping in our room. That's _if_ we let her visit. Don't expect much freedom of motion."

"Are you crazy?" her mother said. "How can we just leave it at something like that?"

"Do you have a better idea?" he snapped, revealing a bit of emotion. She glared at him.

"I'm sorry," he said, a moment later. "But do you? What would you suggest? Locking her in her room and transferring her to an inferior school? Sending her to live with your sister? Would you be happy with that? I wouldn't."

Uchida watched them stare at each other.

"Of course not," her mother said. "But I can't—I just feel like we should be doing something. I have no idea. We—"

"We'll think about it later, okay?" he said, patting her on the back, and the woman nodded.

Then he turned back to Uchida, and took a moment to formulate his words.

"I don't have to explain it, do I?" he continued. "Something like this is obviously unacceptable. Think about us. Think about Yoshino. Think about yourself. Think about the consequences. Long-term, it can't happen."

"I don't even know what you're talking about," Uchida said. "Long-term what? What could possibly follow? Where could we go with this?"

She spoke bitterly, remembering what was expected of Yoshino. Marriage, a future in the public eye—where did Uchida fit into that? Nowhere that she could tell.

But her father was talking.

"—and I don't know, try to give the boys in your class another chance. Who knows? Maybe you just haven't been looking."

Uchida was filled with sudden, unaccountable rage.

"Screw them," she said. "What does it even matter? So what if Yoshino and I have a little fun for a few years? You said it yourself: there's no risk of anything. It's not like I can stay with her. Keep your damned suggestions to yourself!"

It was wholly uncalled for, but she had nowhere else to dump her emotions.

Her mother slammed the table with an open palm, in preparation to rebuke her, but Uchida didn't give her a chance, getting up and storming out of the room.

As she walked, all she could think of was what Yoshino had said, about shielding her from Yoshino's problems, about how Yoshino wanted to spare her the pain. She hadn't fully understood, then.

She understood now.

_You promised_, she thought. _Now let's see you do it._

* * *

"Though for what it's worth, I _have_ met them," Touma said, kneeling on the bed. "They don't seem all that rigid. I doubt they're going to send her away. You're at least safe from that."

"That's good to know," Yoshino said drily. Even though she hadn't really expected much from Touma, she had been hoping for a slightly more informative answer than "It's really hard to tell how they'll respond to something like that, even when you know them. You just have to kind of find out."

"Persistence is helpful, I guess," Touma continued, oblivious to her disenchantment with Touma's advice. "If they don't draw a hard line and hire someone to stalk you twenty-four-seven, it'll be nigh impossible for them to control her life to an unlimited degree."

"Right," Yoshino said.

Touma watched her, and Yoshino chose to watch her foot dangling over the side of the bed.

"I suppose I should tell you, since you'll find out anyway," Yoshino said drearily. "I'm suspended for the rest of the week."

She could feel the bed shift as Touma stirred in surprise.

"Suspended? _You?_ Why?" she asked.

Yoshino stayed silent longer than was necessary.

"Some boy insulted Uchida," she said. "I snapped. I'm lucky I didn't send him to the hospital. You know how it is."

She waited for Touma's reaction. Touma, out of everyone she knew, probably would be the one most likely to "know how it is".

Touma shook her head.

"I'm sorry," she said apologetically. "I do understand, but…it's just impossible to imagine you snapping at anything. Ever. Frankly, I'd have an easier time picturing Makoto or Uchida going crazy. It's just…wow. What did he say?"

"It seems some interesting rumors have been traversing the school about us," Yoshino said, studying her fingernails. "He merely used them to give vent to some related insults. Had I kept my head, I could probably have gotten him suspending just for saying it."

Touma digested that in silence.

"As for snapping," she said, gathering up her knees so she could hug them. "It's merely a side of me I never show anyone."

"No, it's totally understandable," Touma interjected, sensing the bleakness of her mood. "You're not a bad person or anything."

Yoshino looked at Touma, and Touma recoiled slightly at the look there.

"You think so?" she asked.

"Y—yeah," Touma responded.

"That's good, I guess," Yoshino said, going back to staring at her feet.

Perhaps a minute passed, Touma's quiet breaths punctuating the air.

"Well, maybe it's not all bad," Touma ventured.

"How do you figure?" Yoshino asked, watching her from the corner of her eye.

"Well, you know, you might be able to use the time to think," Touma said, raising a finger to accentuate her point, clearly making it all up on the spot just to keep Yoshino talking. "I mean, it was surprisingly useful for me to get some time to think, that time I stayed at your place. It really made things clearer."

"As I recall, you spent most of the time sleeping," Yoshino said drolly, turning to face her completely.

"No, I mean, I, uh, well, I definitely did some thinking while there," Touma responded weakly, clearly unprepared for such a direct rebuttal.

"So, think of it like a vacation, huh?" Yoshino said.

"I guess," Touma hedged.

Yoshino lapsed into thought.

Touma waited a moment.

"Will you be okay here alone?" she asked.

"Probably," Yoshino said.

"Don't be naïve," Yoshino interrupted, spotting Touma opening her mouth. "Don't offer to stay. Really. Think about it."

"I wasn't—" Touma began, clearly lying.

"Tomorrow is a big day. You should get some sleep," Yoshino said. "I mean it."

Touma watched her carefully.

"Alright," Touma said, a moment later, getting up off the bed. "Good night then. You should sleep too."

"Good night."

Yoshino spent the night staring at the ceiling, the gears of her mind turning and turning, but unable to generate an answer.

* * *

Yoshino took a deep breath, standing in front of the impassive wooden door.

It was noon the next day. As promised, she was back. Arisawa, normally an ever-present shadow, was conspicuously missing; she had sent him on a series of long, pointless errands, hinting rather blatantly that he didn't actually need to finish any of them, so long as he was somewhere else for a while. He got the message.

It was an interesting feeling, roaming the halls of her mansion again after what had happened last night. Though she was sure none of the people involved had spoken a word about what happened, she knew that the remaining staff had more than enough information to piece together the story, especially given how loud they had been talking the night before.

Though she had tried to appear nonchalant, she had carefully studied the reactions of the servants she passed. Some made no attempt to hide their curiosity, studying her just as carefully. Others made a good show of pretending that everything was normal. A few showed signs of trying to avoid her, but that could have been natural caution—she had been practically breathing fire the night before. It was far too early to tell if there were going to be problems.

She stroked the door with her left hand. Her chief servant's bedroom.

_So many memories…_

As a child, the room had been her default source of comfort whenever she had been struck by one of her periodic bouts of loneliness. The woman never questioned her when she appeared, something which Yoshino appreciated, but she had always felt the woman's eyes on her, wondering what tore at her ward's heart.

To be perfectly honest, she had never really stopped the habit; she had only slowly transferred her dependence over to someone else. That way, at least from the outside, it appeared that she had conquered her demons.

Today the door appeared only as an impassive barrier, one that she feared to cross.

_Maybe I shouldn't have insisted on meeting here_, she thought.

"Nervous?" Nakanawa asked, appearing at her side.

Yoshino startled, then looked up, at the slightly lined face of her personal handmaid. A title that had been granted when she had first moved here, as a reward for long service, it meant less than might be expected. It was supposed to mean that she was a personal assistant, brushing Yoshino's hair, carrying her bags to school, helping dress her, things of that sort.

Some of these tasks Yoshino had never asked for; others had been long ago absorbed by her de facto mother. Instead, to Nakanawa it meant a higher salary and a slightly subtler role; besides performing odd tasks around the house, she was the one who discreetly took care of Yoshino's discarded laundry and tidied her room when she was away. She anticipated Yoshino's needs, showing up with Earl Grey when she was doing homework, appearing with a jacket whenever Yoshino headed for a doorway, coordinating meals with the kitchen. She was also uncannily good at guessing when Yoshino was craving sweets, _especially_ when Yoshino had decided to control herself by not saying anything.

In short, she made sure Yoshino's life was never inconvenient.

"Of course," Yoshino said, going back to staring at the doorknob pensively.

"Say, Nakanawa," she began, interrupting Nakanawa, who had been about to say something.

"Yes?" the woman responded when Yoshino didn't continue.

"What do you think of me?" Yoshino asked quietly. "For disappointing her expectations like this. For everything."

Nakanawa waited a moment before speaking, thinking over her words carefully.

"To be honest, I should confess something first."

Yoshino looked up with mild surprise.

Nakanawa looked away.

"The fact is, I've known for a quite a while," she admitted. "I don't know precisely how long it's been going on, but at least two years."

Yoshino's expression changed to one of total surprise.

Nakanawa met Yoshino's eyes, then smiled broadly.

"You really thought you could fool your handmaid?" she said teasingly, trying to dispel the tension. "It's practically my job to read your mind. I make your bed and do your laundry. Trust me. It wasn't that hard."

"Why didn't you ever say anything?" Yoshino asked, voice sounding uncertain, worried, and slightly betrayed.

Nakanawa dropped her faux-careless attitude abruptly.

"I've been here longer than anyone," she said, avoiding Yoshino's gaze. "I was there when you were born, and to see your nursemaid get fired. I remember what you were like before Uchida-chan arrived. I was one of the ones who tried so hard to make you happy. The last thing I'd want to do is take that away from you. I knew that, someday, it would all come out and there'd be a reckoning. I just thought that, for now, there was no need to ruin things by telling anyone what I knew."

"You could have told me, at least," Yoshino commented bitterly.

"I didn't want to embarrass you. I knew you were ashamed of it."

Yoshino fell into a thoughtful silence.

Nakanawa inclined her head, gesturing at the closed door.

"My job is much easier than hers," she said. "She has to worry about your personal development, and your future, and raising you to be a strong woman. Things like that. I just have to keep you comfortable and, as much as within my power, happy. I won't judge. I won't ever judge."

A moment later, Yoshino's head snapped up, her eyes demanding and inquisitive.

"But you're a mother too, aren't you?" she demanded. "You should have some idea of how she feels. Tell me."

Yoshino waited impatiently as Nakanawa pondered her answer.

"We all see reflections of ourselves in our children," she said carefully. "We love our children for who they are, but we all dream of who they could be. Unfairly or not, we place our aspirations upon them. I doubt she's disgusted with you, or condemns you. But you've shaken her dream of the future, and that can take a lot to recover from."

"Remind her why she loves you. That's my advice."

Nakanawa paused, then nodded to herself.

"Now if you'll excuse me, my guess is you'll want some tea and snacks after all this, so I'll go arrange that."

She turned to go.

"Nakanawa," Yoshino interrupted.

"What is it?"

"How are things?" Yoshino asked. "I feel bad that I never ask, despite everything you do for me. How is the family?"

Nakanawa smiled slightly, closing her eyes.

"Fine, more or less. Nothing much to report. I don't see them as much I'd like, since I'm stuck up here—no offense. But uh…well, if you want news, apparently Ta-kun is working up the courage to ask some girl out in person and keeps asking me for advice on how to do it."

She sighed, pressing her face into a hand.

"I don't know why he's so fixated on the girl. She ignores his love letters and probably ignores his very existence. Frankly, I'm not even sure how I feel about a relationship at his age. I wish he'd at least tell me who she is, but he's so secretive about it…"

Yoshino was sorry she asked.

"Well, I didn't really get the best impression of him when I met him…" Yoshino commented, finding an interesting wall to look at.

Nakanawa seemed to snap back awake.

"Well, yes," she said, grimacing. "Wow, you still remember that? I'm so, so sorry about that. But that was _years_ ago, and I told you he's sorry."

"Right," Yoshino said drily.

"Well anyway," Nakanawa said, after an awkward moment. "Typical teenager stuff. I'm sure you're absolutely fascinated. I'll stop boring you and go make that tea, but _you_—"

She stuck a finger into Yoshino's forehead to accentuate her point.

"—need to stop procrastinating and open the door already."

Nodding to herself, she turned to leave.

"Nakanawa," Yoshino interrupted again.

"Like I said—" Nakanawa began.

"No snacks," Yoshino said. "Just the tea. Really."

Nakanawa narrowed her eyes at her, peering into her face.

"You'll want the snack," she concluded finally. "I'm thinking some French cookies today. With chocolate. The chef's very proud of them. You'll love it, Yo-chan, I promise."

Without excusing herself this time, she walked away briskly.

"But I'm telling you—" Yoshino began, raising a finger.

"Not listening~" Nakanawa said in a sing-song voice.

Yoshino watched her walk away, sighed, then turned back to the door.

She took a deep breath and knocked.

"Come in," the voice said. "It's not locked."

She turned the doorknob and stepped in, closing the door behind her.

"Who were you talking to out there?" her servant asked, face mild, walking up to meet her.

"Nakanawa," Yoshino said. "She wanted to talk."

Well, it wasn't a lie, and she doubted it was possible to hear any details through the door.

"I see," the woman said.

Yoshino stepped forward and surprised her with an embrace, the kind of which she hadn't given for years. She wasn't short enough to bury her head into the woman's chest anymore, but this was close enough.

"What is this?" her servant asked, surprised and suspicious.

"Psychology," Yoshino said, using her grasp to pull the woman in the direction of the bed.

"And I guess that's why you asked to meet here instead of in the office," the woman added, not really resisting. "I should never have agreed to that."

"That's right," Yoshino agreed, using her body weight to drag the other person down, collapsing them both onto the bed. "Mother."

"You're not even being close to subtle," her mother snorted, sitting back up straight with one forceful motion, "_daughter._ And I told you to never call me that."

Yoshino didn't respond to that, instead burying her face into her mother's shoulder and hair. Surprisingly, the woman acceded, embracing her back for a moment before letting go.

"I'm not that easily manipulated," she said, pulling back and looking Yoshino severely in the eye. "But you knew that, didn't you?"

Yoshino nodded.

The woman sighed, and it was as if the weight of her burdens was suddenly visible. She no longer looked stern and composed, but instead stressed and confused.

"To think that just recently I was worrying about you bringing a boy home, and what I would do if that happened," she said. "I had no idea how I would deal with such an unsuitable match. I even took the time to grill Yuka on who there might be. How naïve."

She said the last two words with disgust, but Yoshino went with the flow as best she could.

"Did she mention anyone?" she asked, buying some time.

"No, not really," the woman said blankly, looking at her fingernails. "Maybe some boys with crushes, but it didn't seem like you were interested at all."

_Wait, what?_ Yoshino thought.

"That loose-lipped little—" Yoshino began, raising a fist.

"Yoshino," her mother interrupted, grabbing her shoulder. Yoshino looked up, eyes wide, dreading the moment.

"It's not that I was really _that_ clueless," the woman said, looking into her eyes. "You might not be as open with me as I'd like, but certain things I can tell. I know my own daughter—or I thought I did. I could tell when you were looking at her in _that _way. I knew you were tempted. Why else would I have spent so long trying to get you to go to those social events? You know, the trips to Hawaii and such."

"You wanted me to get into one of those social circles, and find some _suitable_ male friends," Yoshino said with distaste, looking away.

"My heart wasn't in it either," her mother said. "But what else was I supposed to do? You know the issues involved as well as I do, and I don't like it any more than you do. But what else is reasonable? Who knows? Maybe if you just gave some of them a chance…"

The woman shook her head, as if to shake off the side topic.

"I should have put a stop to the sleeping together business years ago," her mother said regretfully, "but I was too scared of the effect it would have on you. I know how dependent you are on her."

Yoshino looked up at the woman from the corner of her eye.

"Is it that obvious?" she asked.

"I thought I understood you," her mother said, ignoring the question. "I thought that no matter how tempted you were, how much you wanted to, you would never do it. I don't have to explain to you why it was a bad idea, both for you and for her. You know very well. That's the kind of the girl I raised."

Yoshino looked up in surprise at the fierce tone of voice, and found the woman looking at her accusingly.

"Why would let yourself do this?" her mother, eyes quavering. "Is this what I taught you? Is it?"

Yoshino stared back, mind working to formulate a response, but her mother spoke first, eyes averted.

"I wanted you to be educated, well-spoken, and strong. Brilliant and unbreakable. Just like the Old Man would have wanted. I wanted you to be capable of taking on the immense burden of being this family's heir. I wanted to be the one to finally raise a Yoshino worthy of the name. Is it a curse? Must they all have some vice they can't resist? I thought you could do it, but—"

"Mother!" Yoshino snapped, and the woman turned instantly to look at her again.

Yoshino took a breath, and spoke carefully.

_I have to do this._

"I thought so too," she said, softly. "I thought I could make myself so worthy of admiration. But it turns out I couldn't sacrifice this. Not this. I wanted to do what you said, but I couldn't. I'm just not that perfect."

She took another breath.

"All those things you said, about brilliance and strength—those are valuable in their own right, but so is happiness. It turns out, I can't be happy without her."

She swallowed.

"I can't even explain properly what it was like, meeting her for the first time. She was the first child I met who didn't let who I _was_ affect her. She didn't make fun of me, try to treat me differently, or pester me about what it was like having no parents. She was just there, and she worked so, so hard to talk to me, that I—"

She closed her eyes briefly, to hold her composure.

"Looking back, I can see that she can't have been the only one worth talking to, but she was the only one persistent enough to break through. I was so grateful, and once I met her, I started to admire how happy and pure her life was. She never thought the same things I did, never said the cynical things I did, hated no one."

"You were too smart a child to be abandoned like that," the woman across from her said. Her mother's eyes were misty, but Yoshino was too deep in her own story to notice.

"Maybe it was something like that," Yoshino agreed absently. "Sometimes I wonder what I would have become like without her."

Yoshino shook her head to clear it.

"I don't know when that gratefulness and admiration caused me to fall in love, but I suspect it happened almost the moment I met her," she said. "There's nothing wrong with a platonic love like that. But the obsession, the time I spent with her, all of that—"

Yoshino took another breath, aware that she was losing her calm.

"I don't know when I started to lust after her," she said, avoiding her mother's gaze. "It was gradual. I didn't even know what was happening. Maybe I should have asked, but I didn't how to bring it up. How was I supposed to admit that I found it fascinating to watch her without her shirt? How was I supposed to talk about something embarrassing like that?"

Yoshino paused, then pressed on.

"It was a stupid idea," she said. "But I've always been curious why adults seemed to find so much enjoyment in alcohol. I couldn't stand not knowing. So I snuck some of the alcohol from the New Years party two years ago, and convinced Yuka to try it with me."

Yoshino didn't even want to glance at her mother's face.

"It had the results you'd expect," Yoshino said.

"_Want to hear a secret?" Uchida asked, leaning in close to Yoshino's face._

"_What?" Yoshino asked, feeling more uncomfortable than she wanted to admit by Uchida's proximity._

"_To be honest, I don't even see what the big deal is, about boys," Uchida said, slurring the words slightly, and making a wild dismissive gesture with her hand. "Everyone makes such a big deal about it, and yeah, it's embarrassing to talk about dirty things. But that's because of how embarrassing it sounds! Not because I want to do it at all. I don't see where the appeal is. Oh, wow, it's so hot in here. Can't you turn the heater down or something? Why did I let you convince me to try this stuff?"_

_Uchida pulled loose yet another button from the top of her nightshirt, then refilled her cup on the stand, drinking half of it._

"I couldn't control myself," Yoshino continued.

_Yoshino swallowed sharply, trying to avert her eyes without being obvious about it._

"_Are—are you sure you aren't just too young to understand?" she asked, trying to mask with levity how flushed she was feeling, at the combination of Uchida's exposure and the topic of conversation._

"_That's just the thing," Uchida asserted. "I do understand. I, er—"_

_Uchida coughed in embarrassment._

"_Alright, this is definitely a secret," Uchida said._

_Yoshino nodded, breathing heavily._

"She basically admitted she wouldn't resist it if I tried," Yoshino tried to justify.

"_Sometimes I think about stuff like that," Uchida said. "And it's…fun just like people say. It's just that, I can't understand why the boy is there. If I focus on myself, then it's fun, but if I try to put any of the boys I know there, it just makes me cold. I must be doing something wrong…"_

_Uchida looked up._

"_Is something wrong? You look really red."_

"_It's—it's the alcohol," Yoshino explained._

"_Makes sense," Uchida shrugged._

_Uchida looked as if she were struggling to think clearly._

"_Alright, what about you?" Uchida demanded, leaning forward. "I've told you this much embarrassing stuff. It's only fair for you to say something."_

_Yoshino struggled to keep her composure. What was she supposed to do? Lie?_

"_I—I think the same way," Yoshino said._

"_Really?" Uchida asked, laughing weakly. "How funny. I thought for sure it was just me."_

_Uchida frowned._

"_You really don't look alright," she said. "Stop being so uptight and just unbutton a little. It won't matter."_

"_No, Yuka, I—" Yoshino began._

"Yuka never was the biggest on personal space," Yoshino said.

"_You know, it's funny," Uchida said, unbuttoning Yoshino's top two buttons. "This sake must be some pretty potent stuff. You don't look like a boy at all, but I—"_

_Uchida dropped her hands suddenly, tilting her head, looking confused._

"—_I feel strange looking at you like this," she said, furrowing her brow. _

_That tore it._

"Damn it! You know what I'm trying to say!" Yoshino finished, covering her face with her hands in mortification.

"That's how it happened," she said, head in her hands. "It's been going on for two years, and I hated myself the whole time."

She swallowed one last time.

"I can't be the perfect daughter you're imagining. I'm sorry."

She listened to her own breathing as she waited for a response.

A while later, she forced herself to look up, not having received one.

Her mother was _crying. _

Yoshino looked at her in shock.

"I—I'm sorry!" she said. "But—"

"No, it's alright," her mother said, trying to wipe her eyes with one sleeve. "I—I always knew I was being unfair, asking so much of—of you. I just—just thought you could do it. I wanted–"

She shook her head, and fell silent, trying to recover her composure.

Yoshino struggled to make sense of her reaction.

"What are you saying?" she asked in confusion, leaning over, as if somehow getting closer would help.

"I'm sorry for placing my unrealistic desires on you," her mother said, lip trembling. "That's right, you don't have to be perfect. I love you anyway. I just wish…"

Again she fell silent.

"Wish what?" Yoshino asked, grabbing the woman by the shoulder, but the woman only shook her head.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Can you leave? I want to be alone for a while."

"I—" Yoshino began, but stopped.

It hurt, she realized, the gap of comprehension. Her mother had thought she understood Yoshino, but she didn't. Yoshino had thought she understood the woman, but it was clear now she didn't either.

This lack of true comprehension shook her view of her life.

She swallowed and nodded, painfully.

_I'm sorry, Arisawa. How am I supposed to ask this woman for advice? We don't even understand each other! I—_

"Alright," she said. "If that's what you want."

She got up, turning for the door.

_I can't leave her crying like this. She's my _mother_ and it's _my_ fault._

"Mother?" she asked.

"Yes?" the voice behind her asked.

Yoshino turned back around.

"I promise you, mother," she said shakily, looking at the woman. "I'll make it up to you somehow. I just need time."

Her mother looked at her with surprised, red eyes.

_Why would I say that?_ Yoshino lamented. _ I can't—I don't know—_

She took a breath to calm herself.

"I have a plan. Sort of."

* * *

At the end of the school day, she found Uchida emerging from one of the side entrances to the school, as they had arranged.

She had asked for their whole circle of friends to meet, but Uchida was alone. Apparently, the others would be delayed.

In truth, she was glad. She wanted the time to speak to Uchida alone, but when she tried to say something, Uchida put her finger to her lips and gestured towards the café near the school where they were going.

It wasn't until the server brought their drinks that Uchida cleared her throat and started to talk.

Yoshino nodded in affirmation.

"They really weren't as bad as they seemed in front of you, yesterday," Uchida said. "They were unhappy, obviously, but they weren't as angry as I expected. I guess it's good news, but honestly it's pretty bad feeling their disappointment. My father seemed more resigned than anything."

She paused, trying to be a little coherent.

"Bottom line, I guess, is that I'm grounded for two weeks. It's better than I expected."

Uchida looked down into her fruit juice.

"What really hurts is how my mother responded," she continued. "You know how it is; she always wants to talk to me, and we always understand each other. Last night, she kept looking at me like an alien, like she doesn't understand me. I wish I knew what was going through her mind."

As Uchida spoke, her words brought forth in Yoshino's mind echoes of her own conversation with her mother.

"I'm not sure if that made sense," Uchida finished.

Yoshino shook her head decisively, looking down into her own cup.

"No, I understand perfectly. It's—we're the same way."

They shared a moment of mutual contemplation.

Uchida leaned back into the padded booth of the café, holding her cup up in the air with both hands to stare at it.

"On a different topic," Uchida said, "Chiaki asked me to remind you that she's not your personal messenger girl, and to ask why you didn't just tell Touma in the morning about this meeting."

"Tell her she needs to get one of you to get a cell phone first, and then I'll try calling someone else," Yoshino said, leaning over the table toward Uchida. "And I _did_ tell Touma. But I didn't have everything thought through in the morning, so I didn't ask either of them to come."

"Tell Chiaki yourself," Uchida said casually, sipping her juice through a straw.

Yoshino shook her glass of iced tea, watching the ice cubes rattle against the glass sides.

"So what does it mean to be grounded anyway?" Yoshino asked, watching Uchida slurp her juice. "I see that you're here, and I didn't have to sneak you some elaborate note, so it can't be all that bad."

"Only because I lied to them and said it was a preplanned study session for entrance exams," Uchida said around her straw. "Despite everything, my mom is still worried about which high school I'll be going to, and wants me to milk you for all you're worth. She places a surprising amount of value in that."

Yoshino scrutinized Uchida's neck.

"Honestly, I thought things were going to be a lot worse," Yoshino said carefully. "Instead you're sipping juice in a café, your parents don't even care about us meeting for a study session, and they haven't sent you to some sort of nunnery. I didn't think it'd be this easy."

Uchida set down her glass with a clang, and Yoshino realized she had misstepped.

"What do you want me to do?" Uchida asked, looking at her with ill humor. "Start crying on your shoulder? What would that change?"

Yoshino opened her mouth to respond, but Uchida turned away to keep talking, and Yoshino realized with relief that Uchida hadn't really been angry at her.

"And we're not out of the woods, not by a long shot," Uchida said, peering forward intently. "They're still watching me, no matter what it seems like. They called Chiaki in the middle of lunch to grill her up and down about this 'study session'. She gamed them into believing that yesterday I lied to her too. I can't believe they still trust her that much."

"Some girls just know how to sell it," Yoshino shrugged, taking a sip of her tea. "She say anything about not being your personal lie-verifier?"

Uchida smiled slightly.

"In more colorful language than that," she said. "Also something about being a doctor—I didn't quite catch it."

They took a moment to drink their respective beverages.

"There's one more thing," Uchida added.

Yoshino inclined her head.

"The thing is," Uchida continued, "my parents are acting really suspiciously. They're being way nicer than they should be. This morning, when I got up, it's like nothing even happened. They just shuffled me off to school like always. My mother even smiled at me! It makes me nervous."

Yoshino thought for a moment.

"I guess we'll just have to take things one at a time," she said, levelly. "If they want to act like nothing's happen, it helps takes the pressure off for now. We'll cross that bridge when we get there."

Yoshino paused.

"I'm glad, actually," she said. "It means what I'm planning is actually plausible. I was pretty sure I'd have to change my mind the moment I talked to you."

"And that plan would be…" Uchida asked, gesturing for her to move on with one hand, holding her empty glass with the other.

"When the others get here," Yoshino, waving her hand dismissively.

Uchida looked annoyed, but assented.

"I still don't like it," she said, putting her head on the table glumly. "There must be a catch somewhere."

"There probably is," Yoshino agreed.

She grabbed Uchida's shoulder across the table, trying to be reassuring.

"But let's hope it doesn't arrive for a while, at least, hmm?"

Uchida nodded.

With serendipitous timing, Touma and Chiaki appeared in the window next to them, pointing. Uchida waved awkwardly, managing to smile in her usual manner.

Yoshino and Uchida shifted to make room as the door to the café opened, the little attached bell ringing, and the other two walked up to their booth.

"Where's Makoto?" Yoshino asked.

"Delayed," Chiaki said acerbically, sitting down next to her. "Something about one of his friends. I told them we couldn't wait any longer."

"I see," Yoshino said blandly. "Let's just start then."

"At least let us order first," Touma said, with a trace of annoyance, thumbing the menu that an arriving server had just placed in her hand. She didn't appreciate being rushed.

"I would have thought you guys would be more curious," Uchida commenting, subconsciously absorbing a bit of the negative mood. "Weren't you bugging me all day about it?"

"Well, I ordinarily would be," Touma said, giving Chiaki a look.

"Alright, guys, can we calm down?" Yoshino asked.

Chiaki returned Yoshino's look, then glanced at Touma.

After a moment, Touma nodded, and they dropped their tiff with an alacrity akin to flipping a switch.

Yoshino waited for them to order and for the drinks to arrive before pressing onward, observing the three of them make small talk.

Finally, detecting a lull in the conversation, she cleared her throat quietly, grabbing their attention.

"As I implied earlier, I have some things I want to say," she announced.

"Yeah, what exactly is going on?" Touma asked bluntly, leaning onto the table with one elbow. "I still can't believe you guys slept together."

"You _told_ her about that?" Uchida asked, looking at Yoshino incredulously.

Yoshino kneaded her forehead.

"Can we_ please_ exercise a little discretion?" she asked. "This isn't exactly private, Touma."

"Ah, yes," Touma said.

Chiaki glared at her from across the table, making it clear that had they been on the same side, Touma would have received a punishing elbow in the ribs. Uchida looked absolutely mortified, looking down at her lap, probably wishing she could suddenly acquire teleportation powers.

"Look," Yoshino said. "They were going to find out eventually; I figured it might as well be from me."

"You could have asked me first!" Uchida complained, cheeks burning, looking from side to side.

"I wanted to ask Touma's advice," Yoshino tried to explain.

Touma shot some inexplicable look at Chiaki, who immediately folded her arms arrogantly and looked away.

"Just so you know, we haven't been quite so degenerate yet," Chiaki said.

It took Yoshino a moment to understand what she was talking about, but when she did, she felt obligated to put her forehead back in her hand.

"I wasn't _asking_," she lamented.

"Well, it_ is_ kind of awkward," Touma admitted. "What with Makoto and all. Uh, which is _not _to imply that there's some sort of three—it's just confusion, is all. I mean, er—"

Touma paused, trying to recover the sentence.

Yoshino wanted to bang her head into the table.

"Anyway, so, uh…how was it?" Touma asked thoughtfully, a moment later. "You know, was it…interesting?"

Touma wore a look of curiosity.

Uchida looked like she was ready to hyperventilate.

"No," Yoshino ordered, head still down, slamming her palm into the table. "We are _not_ talking about this. Touma, shut up."

"How rude," Touma said, folding her arms and curling her lips in imitation of Chiaki, who in turn was opening and closing her right fist, clearly mulling over whether or not she should punch Touma, and with how much force.

"Would you guys just listen already?" Yoshino asked, looking up desperately.

To her and Uchida's immense relief, the other two nodded slowly.

Yoshino took a breath, sitting up.

"Alright," Yoshino said, laying her hands on the table in a gesture of openness. "Here's how it is."

"There's a reasonable chance I'll be forced to move out of the area soon," she said. "It's complicated, but, in a nutshell, it seems my prodigal parents have finally decided to remember that I exist. This is not, in my view, good news."

"Seriously?" Touma asked, but Yoshino waved her silent.

"Not good news," she continued. "Especially not given what they think I should be doing. According to them, it seems I should be attending some sort of prestigious private school instead of the grungy one I'm actually in. They want me to move in with them to do it, _and_ they believe I should be actively in the process of scouting for future husbands, since it's part of my family obligations. They believe in this so strongly that they consider me delinquent for not having started, and are trying to foist options upon me."

Finishing her explanation, she let out a breath and opened her eyes again.

She had expected them to be surprised, but didn't quite expect the utterly stunned expressions she got. They were both staring at her: Touma with jaw slack, and Chiaki wiith eyes wide, implausibly managing to keep her mouth fixed in a pugnacious scowl.

"And that is how it is," she finished unnecessarily, trying to prompt them into speech. "I figured you should know."

She waited.

"Well," Touma began, breaking the silence." Uh…"

She looked down.

"No offense," Touma said. "But I am suddenly very glad I was not born into a rich family. They sound crazy."

"Do you have to do it?" Chiaki asked, looking at Yoshino. "You said 'forced'. How much leverage do they have over you?"

"It's an exercise in will-power," Yoshino said, looking between the two of them. "Except that if they are sufficiently determined, they have the law on their side. It's a giant mess, and I might be able to take them to court for negligence to declare myself emancipated, except that it's hard to prove negligence when you have over a dozen servants at your beck and call."

She shook her head rapidly.

"Anyway, the details aren't important," she continued, rushing through her explanation. "What it comes down to is, they want to meet me soon to discuss it. Everyone around me says I should do it, and that I might be able to convince them to change their mind on some things. It's at least worth the try."

She waited for them to digest the explanation.

"So when are you meeting them?" Touma asked, finally.

Yoshino eyes shifted, and she heard Touma suck in a breath, realizing her mistake.

Uchida glared at Touma, but it wasn't really her fault; it was a reasonable question, and one she expected.

Yoshino looked down.

"You have to understand," Yoshino said quietly. "I've never seen these people. They're complete strangers to me. I've hated them my entire life. I still hate them. It's not something I can just do, even if it makes sense."

"I'm sorry," Touma apologized.

Yoshino shook her head.

"Don't be."

"I should have—"

Yoshino shook her head again.

"Well, anyway," she said. "In case you're wondering….regarding recent events, I am confident that none of my servants will let leak that anything happened. Regardless of whether they approve of me or not, they approve of my parents less. Loyalty is a valuable thing."

She waited through a long moment of silence.

"I'm not really sure what else to add," she said, privately remembering all that she was leaving out. "I think that covers it."

"Those bastards," Chiaki snarled with unexpected ferocity. "The way they abandoned you would only be acceptable if they were dead."

They looked at Chiaki with surprise at the sentiment, but she didn't endeavor to explain.

Yoshino looked around the table to catch their eyes, and their attention.

"Besides all of that, I have an announcement," she said, and this time Uchida leaned in to listen carefully.

She took a breath.

"I'm taking a trip," she said. "A vacation for the next four days, while I'm suspended, I'm not sure where yet, but nowhere far."

She glanced at Uchida. Uchida looked at her with surprised eyes.

"I know this probably seems sudden, and a bit random," Yoshino continued. "But I'm actually under quite a bit of stress. I just thought…I should try to relax a little, before I go crazy. I took your advice to heart, Touma."

Touma and Chiaki looked at her with confusion.

Yoshino laughed sheepishly.

"I guess that seems hard to believe, but it's true. I need the time to think, with so much going on. I just thought it was a good opportunity. I'd bring Uchida with me, but there are obvious problems with that."

"How irresponsible," Chiaki commented, with sudden venom. "So you're just going to leave her here?"

"I—" Yoshino began, before swallowing sharply.

_That's Chiaki for you_, she thought. _Straight to the point as always._

"I feel bad, of course," Yoshino said. "But it's only four days, and I can rush back at any time. Uchida's parents seem to be leaving her alone, for now, and I'm always in contact by phone. I just—there's things I need to do, and plans I have to make. And I think…I just need to get away from it all for a while. My family, my servants…you know how it is."

"I guess that's one of the perks of being rich," Touma commented facetitiously. "You can just make decisions like this on the fly."

Yoshino nodded, watching Uchida with one eye. She had been silent the whole time.

"I understand," Uchida said, nodding to herself. "I'll be waiting."

* * *

A while later, they waved the other two goodbye. Yoshino had offered to walk Uchida home, a gesture that attracted smirks from Touma, and dispassionate interest from Chiaki.

_Is everything I do now going to be scrutinized like that?_ Yoshino thought.

"You know, I was thinking," Uchida began.

"Hmm?" Yoshino asked, dropping her previous line of thought.

"That boy who stalks you sometimes, do you know anything about him?" Uchida asked.

Briefly surprised, Yoshino turned to look carefully at Uchida.

"That reminds me," she said, changing the subject. "Who told you you were free to mention that to my servants?"

Uchida's eyes widened.

"She told you about that?"

"Yes," Yoshino said.

Uchida grimaced, then pursed her lips.

"Is it that a big deal?" she defended. "It hardly matters if she knows, especially not now. You never told me it was verboten to mention!"

Yoshino sighed, facing forward again.

"No, not really," she said. "Just—that's the kind of thing that could have really set something off. Not that it matters anymore, as you said."

They stopped at an intersection, Uchida pushing the button for the signal light.

"What brings this up, anyway?" Yoshino asked.

Uchida scratched her head nervously.

"Well, I know you don't like talking about it, so I didn't mention it, but actually, on the way out, I spotted him and Makoto arguing down the street from the café."

"So that's what he was doing," Yoshino said. "And why you kept looking behind you. That's right; he's one of Makoto's friends, isn't he?"

"Yeah," Uchida agreed. "Makoto kept grabbing his arm and trying to drag him somewhere too. Maybe we should ask about it."

Yoshino snorted.

"It's none of our business. The last thing I want to do is get anywhere within a hundred feet of whatever that is."

"Yeah," Uchida agreed. "That's true."

The light changed, and they began to cross

"So…" Uchida began.

Yoshino tilted her head to indicate she was paying attention.

"If I could somehow, miraculously talk my parents into letting me go with you, would you be okay with that?" Uchida asked. "I mean, I know you're supposed to be retreating to a fortress of solitude, or something like that, but would it be okay?"

Yoshino blinked.

"That'd be amazing," she said. "Remember, I told you I'd bring you if I could. But it's basically impossible now."

"Yeah," Uchida said wistfully. "I was just wondering."

* * *

_Author's note: My original intention was for the entire rest of this story to be one chapter, but I knew that was unrealistic even by last chapter. This time, right when it passed nine thousand words in the middle of Yoshino's meeting with Uchida, I cracked the obligatory Vegeta joke to myself…and completely gave up on making it all one chapter. It was laughable anyway._

_Trivia: There was a deleted scene in this chapter. It was kind of fun to have, but it just didn't fit in with the rest of the story; it was too random and out of left field, and had nothing really to do with anything. I might be able to reincorporate the best aspects of it later…_


	5. Eternity

_Author's Note: Epic delay, etc. etc. All I can really do is apologize for being exceptionally busy._

_Well, also: Jealous Uchida is adorable._

* * *

"We could have gone to your summer villa."

"Yes."

"Okinawa."

"Easily."

"Hawaii."

"Getting you a passport that quickly? I doubt it."

"China."

"Let's ignore the passport issue. And everything else. Do we really want to blow most of a day traveling back and forth? For a four day trip?"

"Brazil."

"That's even _worse_."

"Antarctica."

"Okay, I'm going to start ignoring you now," Yoshino said.

Uchida snorted.

"Okay fine," she said. "But you get my point. We could have easily gone somewhere cool, like Kyoto or something."

"Not listening," Yoshino said, looking pointedly out othe window of the train, watching the snowy landscape fly by.

Uchida frowned, looking aggrieved, then reshaped her face into a pout, but Yoshino ignored her, partly because she wasn't looking in her direction.

Uchida took a breath, shifting in the cushy chair, then leaned over to get near Yoshino's ear.

"Wait, so _you_ have a passport?"

"Yes," Yoshino confirmed.

"Why?" Uchida asked.

"Why not?" Yoshino asked.

Truth be told, her "mother" had acquired it in case Yoshino should ever blow a fuse and actually accept one of those invitations to Hawaii or something she kept receiving. She certainly wasn't in the mood to let Uchida know about that, however.

Uchida made an annoyed grunt.

"We could have gone to Egypt—" she began.

"This is what it's going to be like now, huh?" Yoshino interrupted, turning to look at Uchida. "You're going to use me to fulfill every insane wish you have. And you're going to whine if I don't."

"Well, yeah," Uchida said. "You told me how much you're worth. It'd be like pennies to you."

"No compunction about spending my money, then?" Yoshino asked. "I owe you now?"

Uchida looked across the center aisle with a sideways expression.

"Well, yeah," she repeated. "You gotta take responsibility now, you know? Something like that."

Yoshino tilted her head in confusion—then got the joke.

She suppressed a startled laugh.

"Okay, I'm not marrying you, if that's what you're looking for," she said, mentally verifying that the compartment they were in was mostly empty.

Uchida persisted in wearing a stubborn expression.

"We could have at least been driven here," Uchida complained. "I don't see why we've got to take the train."

"I like trains," Yoshino explained. "They're nice and soothing."

"Of course you do," Uchida said. "You have a chauffeur."

Yoshino frowned.

"Look, is there a reason you're mad at me?" she asked.

"I'm not mad," Uchida said.

"Yes you are!" Yoshino insisted.

"I'm not," Uchida repeated, looking down at her feet. "A lot of things have happened recently. It has me on edge. I just wanted to complain a little."

"So complaining about stupid things helps?" Yoshino asked.

"Yes!"

Yoshino frowned. It's not that she didn't believe her, but something seemed off—

"Though if you must know," Uchida said resignedly, "I have some issues with your whole 'Leave Yuka behind by herself on a whim' so-called 'plan'."

"I thought you were okay with that!" Yoshino exclaimed.

"I am now," Uchida said. "After thinking about it for a while. But why did you think it was a good idea to spring that on me like that? Was it fun, surprising me like that?"

"You said you were fine," Yoshino said.

"What was I _supposed_ to say?" Uchida asked. "They were watching us. I just said the answer that would look the best."

Uchida looked away.

"Look, I understand," she said. "You figured if you were going to tell everybody, you might as well make a dramatic announcement out of it. Very Sherlockian and all that. Did you ever stop to consider that maybe that wasn't the greatest of things to surprise me with? Especially right after making it clear that you told Touma everything. It was careless."

Yoshino felt the words bite into her.

"I'm sorry," she said, and meant it, voice frustrated. "I wasn't thinking. But why didn't you say anything yesterday?"

"I was busy," Uchida growled.

_She didn't seem mad at all yesterday…_

_But maybe I just can't read her as well as I thought._

"I'm sorry, okay?" Yoshino said.

"It's alright," Uchida said briskly, turning back around in her seat, dropping the anger like a mask. "Let's talk about something else."

_But is it really_—

Yoshino shook her head, trying to clear it.

She watched Uchida's face.

"So you say you offered to ground yourself for the rest of the school year—" she began.

"I actually volunteered to lock myself in my room and do nothing but study for entrance exams," Uchida said.

"And this _worked_?" Yoshino asked.

They had already had this discussion.

"Yes," Uchida said, annoyed. "I told you: my parents take my academic achievement really seriously. It was a deal. In exchange, I go on this trip."

She had been elated when Uchida had called with the news that she was now somehow able to go with her. At the time, Yoshino had been convinced Uchida's parents had gone absolutely insane, but was too happy to question her too carefully. She had been even more excited when her own servant voiced no objections.

Now though, it all bothered her, like an itch she just couldn't scratch. None of this should be possible. None of it.

She had even considered calling Uchida's parents…but doubted they wanted anything to do with her.

In retrospect, she had seen the dark expression flickering across her head maid's face, but she had ignored it. Why destroy a good thing?

"Are you sure nothing else happened?" she asked.

"Yes!" Uchida insisted loudly, glaring at her, voice brimming with exasperation. "Why do you keep asking?"

This wasn't like Yuka at all.

_Just keep it going as long as possible_, Yoshino thought. _I have no urge to face this now._

"Alright, alright, I understand," she said, smiling brittlely.

Uchida didn't look at her, hiding her expression by looking across the causeway.

Yoshino took a moment to glance surreptitiously around the train car. They were seated near the rear, and the nearest passenger was a man reading a newspaper nearly seven rows in front of them. In addition, they were shielded from scrutiny by the high, airplane-style seat backs. There were probably security cameras somewhere, but who cared about those?

She tapped Uchida on the shoulder.

"What?" Uchida asked, turning her head.

She grabbed the girl's head and kissed her.

A moment later, Uchida jerked away, looking in panic toward the man seated in front of them, who had coughed. Fortunately, he was on the phone.

Then she turned back toward Yoshino.

"What the hell was that?" she demanded.

"I'm taking it while I still have a chance," Yoshino said.

She leaned forward.

"Remember, we're staying with my servant's parents. At my own request. I'm not going to disrespect her parents by doing anything stupid. Best behavior, Yuka."

Uchida wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve.

"Far more worried about you than me," she said, indignant.

A moment, Uchida leaned back in her chair.

"What are your grandparents like, anyway?" she asked.

Yoshino gave her a severe look.

"That's what they are, basically," Uchida insisted.

"They're what you'd expect," Yoshino said, conceding the point. "Granted, I haven't known them for that long, but they seemed to have internalized the whole grandparent routine quite well. Prepare to be spoiled, get way more food than you want, and so forth."

"They seemed to have accepted you rather well," Uchida comment.

"Yes, well," Yoshino explained. "It seems she's been sending them cute pictures and telling them funny anecdotes on a regular basis for the past ten years. It helps. They're quite keen to meet you, by the way."

"I see," Uchida said, meaningfully, eyes narrowing, looking like she was dreading the prospect.

"Ah, don't get me wrong," Yoshino amended, realizing what she had forgotten to say. "They don't _know_ anything. No one has told them. They just want to meet you because of all the stories."

"Oh, okay," Uchida said, looking instantly relieved.

"Which also reminds me," Yoshino added.

Uchida looked at her curiously.

"They're going to grill you hard for information about any relationships their daughter might or might not be involved in," Yoshino said. "The proper response is feigned ignorance and indifference."

Uchida seemed to hesitate slightly.

"Something wrong?" Yoshino asked. Uchida shook her head.

"Got it," she acknowledged.

"Though I like to spice things up by 'accidentally' dropping information," Yoshino said. "For the fun of it."

Uchida gave her a look.

"Of course you do," she said, unnecessarily.

"Oh, and I know I already told you the husband is paralyzed beneath the waist," Yoshino said, "but don't stare or anything, okay?"

"Okay," Uchida said.

"Is that it?" she asked a moment later, having digested all of Yoshino's directives.

"I think so."

Uchida made a show of stretching her arms out above her head.

"How much longer is this trip, anyway?" she asked.

"Half an hour," Yoshino said. "It's almost over. Take a nap or something."

"I think I'll do that," Uchida said.

* * *

Yoshino's phone rang a scant five minutes later, which had been more than enough time for Uchida to fall dead asleep on her shoulder, mouth starting to drip drool. She had been watching the girl, envious of her ability to sleep on the fly.

"H—hello?" she said cautiously, trying not to wake up the girl next to her, barely managing to read the caller id.

_What does mother want at a time like this? _she thought, with trepidation.

"Hello," the pleasantly stern voice said. "Everything going well?"

"We're only about twenty minutes away," Yoshino said. "I was just about to call them and confirm arrival."

_That's right_, Yoshino thought. _This is the first time I've travelled alone. It makes sense that she'd call._

She hadn't even thought of that aspect of it.

"I see," the voice said.

Yoshino waited expectantly, but the line stayed silent.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, finally.

"Either you are a better actor than I thought," her mother said thoughtfully, "Or you genuinely have no idea."

"No idea of what?" Yoshino asked, making a mental note to review her own behavior during this call, so she could fake cluelessness more successfully in the future. However, this time she really didn't know what was going on.

"Besides, have I ever lied to you?" Yoshino added, deciding she might as well tack on the obvious facetious joke.

The woman snorted, then cleared her throat.

"I thought you should know, then," voice chill. "It turns out, Yuka didn't receive permission to go at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. In retrospect, I'm not sure why we both believed something so ridiculous."

Yoshino's hands froze on the phone.

"What?" she asked incredulously, barely keeping her voice low enough to keep from waking the girl in question. "Why? She can't have possibly thought she'd get away with something like this? Are you telling me to get ready to see cops at the train station?"

_So it wasn't possible after all_, a distant part of her registered.

"No, no, calm down," the woman said, providing an example of calmness for Yoshino to follow. "Nothing so drastic. According to her parents, she left a note explaining herself. Apparently, she volunteered to ground herself for a month and begged them to let her stay the whole four days. Obviously, that didn't fly very well, but, as I was forced to explain to them, I'm not prepared to send a snatch squad over to kidnap the two of you back, and no one here is prepared to involve the police in anything."

Yoshino swallowed to stabilize her panic.

"You're telling me to calm down," she said, "and then you start talking about snatch squads and kidnapping and the police."

"Well, it's not going to happen!" her mother hastened to say. "Look, I know it's all pretty crazy, but I've decided to leave it up to you. Just listen."

Yoshino paused, swallowed again, then nodded, even though no one could see her.

"I calmed them down a little," her mother explained. "She can finish this vacation if you two want; they'll even call her in sick. Or you can come rushing back. Either way, expect the metaphorical shit to hit the fan quite hard when you return. I hope it's all worth it. I _really_ hope it is."

"Why?" Yoshino asked.

"Why would she do this?" her mother asked. "Well, I think you would know better—"

"No!" Yoshino interrupted. "Why try to make it so we could stay? Why _didn't_ you just send Arisawa or something to drag me back? Why didn't you just call your parents?"

At her side, Uchida stirred, then went still again, her face deceptively peaceful.

_I really don't know why she would do this, though_, Yoshino thought, patting the girl's hair.

Her mother breathed into the line, briefly.

"I just think it's a good idea," she said evasively. "It was, in fact, an excellent idea to take a vacation. It's probably not worth canceling just because she tagged along, no matter how she did it."

_Her tagging along should have made it better_, Yoshino thought.

Her uneasy feeling from before hit her again, stronger than before.

Why was everything still on track? Once again, none of this should have been possible. It was even more ridiculous now than it had been earlier.

She was missing information; everything just didn't make sense. Not only did she not understand what motivated Uchida to such extremities, there was…something else she was missing.

"I don't know what Yuka was expecting," her mother continued. "She even asked her parents not to tell anyone. As if that would work. I don't think she wanted you to know."

"She fooled me pretty well," Yoshino said, with a hint of affection, running her hand through the girl's hair. "Fooled us, I mean."

That's right," her mother agreed. "I didn't think she was capable of hiding something like this. That's the main reason I believed you, and probably why you believed her. Goes to show you."

"Yes," Yoshino said. "To think she could look at me, and act normal, and smile, after doing all of that—"

An unexpected surge of emotion forced her to stop talking, her eyes tearing.

"You alright?" her mother asked.

"Yes, yes," Yoshino breathed. "It's like everything is exploding around me, and I don't know—"

She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself to breath until she was calm again.

"And I don't know why she would do this," Yoshino said. "Was it really that important to come with me?"

"Maybe she thought so," her mother said. "I couldn't say."

She paused.

"I wonder what it would be like to be so young again," she said, sighing. "I certainly wouldn't miss being so foolish."

_Yes,_ Yoshino thought.

"Well, I'm certainly not coming back now," she said, ignoring her mother's comment.

"I thought so," the woman said. "Well, have fun, if you can."

"I will."

After they had finished their call, Yoshino looked down at Uchida one more time.

_Disaster after disaster, _she thought shakily_, but at least I have these couple of days. I won't tell her I know. Let her have her peace._

She wanted to scream.

* * *

They met her servant's mother at the station, exchanging formalities, bows, and introductions.

The woman gave Uchida a thorough once-over, and Uchida bore it levelly, not showing discomfort as the woman inspected face, clothing, shoes.

"We've heard a lot about you," she said finally.

"She told me," Uchida said, smiling.

"While you're here, I want you to treat it like your own home," the old woman said. "Let us take care of everything. We'll have to make up for the fact that we don't have anything prepared."

"That wouldn't be polite of me," Uchida said, noting the implicit omission of Yoshino from the "guest" group. "That's quite alright."

"I hardly gave you two any time to prepare," Yoshino absolved. "Don't worry about it. Yuka doesn't mind. Isn't that right?"

"Of course not," Uchida said.

Things continued in that vein all the way to the small flat where they were going to spend the next couple of days, and then the ceremony was repeated when they met the wheelchair-bound old man.

They unpacked their bags.

"I guess they really don't know anything," Uchida commented, seated on the bed. "Or else they wouldn't dare put us in the same room."

"Not as if there's anywhere else to put us," Yoshino said, lying down next to her, trying to avert her eyes. "It's the only extra room. It used to be _hers_, you know."

"Best behavior, right?" Uchida asked.

"Yes," Yoshino agreed. "So maybe you can refrain from sitting next to my head. The proximity is distracting. Some of us are trying to sleep. Oh, and nice skirt, by the way."

Uchida jumped up and turned away, tugging at the article of clothing in question instinctively.

"You are a dirty bastard," she said.

"I mean it," Yoshino said. "I mean, it's a bit out of season for something so short, but the trim is nice. And the color contrasts quite nicely with that of its contents."

"I'm leaving," Uchida said.

She quickly followed through with her threat, leaving Yoshino to try, and fail, to sleep.

* * *

"So what kind of man is this Arisawa-san, anyway?" the man seated across from Yoshino asked, gingerly picking up some fish with his chopsticks.

"And I want to hear it from someone else this time," he said, gesturing at Uchida with his eyes, as Yoshino opened her mouth to speak.

Yoshino kept her face straight, wondering how Uchida would handle it. Depending on what happened, it could be pretty entertaining.

Uchida made a face.

"I don't really know," she said.

"Oh, I can tell you do," the woman to her left said. "No need to be so secretive."

Yoshino smiled to herself, wondering if she should bail Uchida out.

"What does it matter?" Uchida asked, sounding annoyed. "It's not your business anyway."

The old couple looked taken aback. Yoshino blinked in surprise.

"Hey Yuka," she whispered, leaning over. "I know I told you to be reticent, but I also told you to be polite. This is taking it too far."

"Why do they want to meddle anyway?" Uchida snapped, quite out loud. "It's nobody's business but hers."

The other two gave each other glances and Yoshino grimaced, trying to think of a way she could signal that really, Uchida was usually more pleasant than this, and that she was just as happy and energetic as the stories suggested.

"Ah, well," Yoshino said, rubbing the back of her head in embarrassment. "I apologize. You see, a lot of things have happened with her parents recently, and she's not in the mood to…say anything."

Yoshino had paused in the middle of her sentence, realizing that her confabulated explanation was actually highly plausible, and probably the real reason behind this.

_Damn it_, she thought. _Why didn't I think of that before letting the conversation get into this? Our first meal here and—_

"So, uh….do you two know anything about the high schools in the area?" Yoshino asked, knowing that academics was a topic sure to catch their interest.

"Before that," the old woman said, clearing her throat. "Er…"

Yoshino and Uchida paused to look at her.

"We know Uchida-chan has some family issues at the moment," she said. "We know that's why you're here. We won't pry by asking what it is, but if we have been insensitive, we apologize. We didn't think—"

"No, that's alright," Uchida said, shaking her head. "I'm sorry. This is my fault."

She smiled wanly, and in its somewhat forced aspect, it was a pale ghost of her typical happy smile. It hurt to look at.

"Well, anyway," the old man said. "We think we have a way to cheer you two up."

They looked at him in interest.

"We heard you two liked plays and things like that," he said, his wife nodding at him. "And we asked, and we were shocked to hear you two have never even been to one. So…"

He pulled two small, rectangular pieces of hard paper out of his pocket and thrust them forward.

Yoshino grabbed them, and it took a moment for her eyes to focus and for it to register what they were.

"Tickets," Uchida said.

"Yes," the woman said. "We heard there was a performance of 'Romeo and Juliet' tomorrow night, and we thought it would be perfect. Con—"

Yoshino coughed, suppressing a laugh.

"Is something wrong?" the woman asked, the others looking at Yoshino.

"No, no," she insisted, waving her hand.

"Well, uh, anyway," the woman continued, regaining her conversational balance. "Consider it a late birthday gift."

"How much did these cost?" Yoshino asked.

"It's a gift," she said.

"No, look," Yoshino said, shaking her head. "It's not right for me to, uh—"

She paused, trying to think of the proper way to express the sentiment.

"If you're going to try to pay for it or something," the man said, "just give up. We won't. Take it up with your—I mean, our daughter, if you really must. She won't either."

_But I pay her salary_! Yoshino thought. _Okay, only indirectly and it's complicated, but—_

"Alright," she grumbled.

"And that's that," the old woman said, with an air of finality. "Now let's see if we can maybe get some dinner eaten, instead of all this talking, hmm?"

* * *

"I'm surprised you didn't go with them," the man said, helping Yoshino assemble the pieces on the chessboard.

"I don't really like shopping as much as I pretend to," she demurred, adroitly dropping several pawns into place. "I think it kind of takes the flavor away when you can buy whatever you want. Uh, no offense."

"None taken," he said, placing his last rook in to place. "That's what she told us. Our daughter, I mean."

He had donned a pair of reading glasses for the occasion, even though Yoshino couldn't see how they would help. The Friday afternoon sun was held back by a set of closed blinds.

"So she figured it out," Yoshino said, grabbing a white and black pawn into her hands and shuffling them behind her back.

"She also said it didn't matter, not when Uchida-chan is present," the man said, looking at her and cocking his head slightly.

Yoshino gave him an inquisitive look.

"Are you worn out from school or something?" he asked, changing the subject. "You look like it. I've seen fifty-year-olds with fewer bags under their eyes,"

"Something like that," Yoshino agreed airily.

"That one," the old man said, pointing at her right hand.

"Then you are black," she said.

"Darn," he said mildly.

She opened the game , then grunted when he responded with yet another symmetrical defense.

"Really?" she asked, playing her response. "You know I'm weak against Indian defenses. That's what I'd play."

"Of course you would," he said, doing likewise.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, shifting her knight.

"I'm just a stodgy old codger," he said, doing likewise. "I like my static defenses."

"Alright," she teased. "But that won't play out well for you. Positional games are my strong suit."

"Says the girl who just advocated an Indian defense," he commented sarcastically.

"As white!" she protested. "Not as black."

"Doesn't make much sense to me," he murmured.

A small flurry of pieces later, he leaned back to contemplate his next move, now that the opening was finally over.

"There is a bit of a serious reason I stayed here, however," Yoshino said, eyes serious.

"Of course there is," the man said distractedly, moving a knight, deciding that he had enough support to establish the outpost.

Yoshino studied her pawn structure, then shifted one up, making a grab for more space. She was white, after all.

"I appreciate the way you two have accepted me," she said, carefully. "But what do you really think of me? I've only been here a few times at most, yet you treat me as if I've been visiting since I was a child. Perhaps it's out of respect for your daughter, but I want to know. You can be honest."

The old man's hand froze in the middle of adjusting his bishop position to buttress his defenses. The square would hold despite the new pawn, but it necessitated some adjustments.

A moment later, he set the piece in place and leaned forward.

"Distracting me, eh?" he asked, faux playfully. "That's a new one."

"I'm serious," she said.

"I know," he said, simply, face becoming somber.

He glanced downward, deep in thought, as Yoshino moved her queen, laying the groundwork for the attack they both knew was coming.

"When she first told us she was taking this job," he began, taking a moment to process her move. "She started by telling us the salary. We were elated. And then she told us the rest of it."

"That sounds like her, alright," Yoshino said. "She would know to give the good news first."

"No offense," the elderly man continued. "We weren't exactly pleased. We were hard up for money, true, but we were looking forward to her finding a suitable husband, grandkids, all of that, fairly soon, especially given how young she had started working. We were hoping such a man could finally relieve her of having to support us. And of course, all the usual stereotypes about meddlesome parents."

Yoshino nodded, slowly, as he put a pawn forward, resisting her intrusion, and incidentally opening an avenue for a potential counterattack.

"It wasn't long before she started sending us pictures, and asking us advice, and talking to us on the phone," he continued. "We had no idea who you were, at the time, but you could hear in her voice how serious she was about this, how taken she was about you. She was obviously trying to sell you to us."

He paused, eyes full of nostalgia.

"She was worried about you, that first year, but you should have heard how she burbled on and on about this cute dress she ordered for you out of a catalog, or your first time at the pool, or your taste for sweets, and on and on and on. We had our reservations, but how can you say anything to someone like that? We waited at first, but—"

Yoshino waited as he paused, then shook his head.

"That was what got us, really," he said, eyes not meeting hers. "She's always been a good daughter, and she never complained, even when she had to opt of high school to earn us money. This goddamn leg! If only I hadn't—"

He stopped, his hand pulling at his leg in frustration.

He visibly controlled himself, and Yoshino took the opportunity to initiate a piece exchange in the center—respectfully, of course.

"Anyway," he continued, "when she called us the summer afterward, and started telling us about how you had changed, and how happy she was, and all the plans she was making, trips to the beach, new toys, there was something in her voice. It—"

He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, taking off his spectacles.

"It was the first time I had heard her truly happy since her childhood," he finished. "You can't imagine how much I missed hearing her like that."

He blinked several times.

"How could I possibly say anything?" he asked rhetorically. "So we acquiesced."

Yoshino stayed silent, watching the chessboard as he responded to her capture. There was a brief burst of activity, pieces coming off the board. His knight outpost was gone, but so was her best bishop. She hoped it was worth it.

"After that," he said, "it was surprisingly easy to get excited with her. You say we didn't know you, and I guess we didn't really, but we have a whole album of pictures she sent us, and every phone call, it was Yuka-chan this, and 'Did I tell you about that time they dug up the garden?' that. It was exactly the same feeling as having a granddaughter you never see."

He fiddled with a rook with his fingers, then shifted it horizontally.

"It still is," he said. "We always wanted to visit, or for her to bring you, but we didn't know how to ask, and she never suggested it herself. I think she was still worried what we thought of you, though she never said anything."

"It was my suggestion, in the end," Yoshino commented, moving her queen to try to flank his defenses.

"Don't worry about things like that," the old man said. "Things are complicated, what with you still having living parents, but we're happy to have you as part of the family, however that works exactly.

"But why me?" Yoshino asked. "Why did she love it so much? I know she loves me, and I'm not belittling that, but it's so mysterious. Why _would_ she?"

The man took a breath.

"I don't know," he said, "Not really."

He leaned back in his chair, abandoning the chessboard temporarily.

"She told me once that she saw a little of herself in you," he said. "I can't tell if she was right. Not anymore, now that you have her imprint all over you, but…"

He considered his words carefully.

"We tried to give her a happy childhood, but we were missing so many things, and everything was so tough," he said bitterly. "She was bright, and wanted dearly to go to college, never mind high school. She never complained to our faces, but I could tell she was crying inside. It broke my heart. I—we begged her, told her we would be fine with just her mother's earnings, but she knew that just wasn't true."

He made eye contact with Yoshino for the first time in conversation.

"I won't mince words," he said, eyes sad. "You didn't have a happy childhood either, despite all that wealth. If I had to guess, that was what she saw. That was why. She wanted to fix your life, see you grow up, and see you do everything she couldn't do."

Yoshino reflected, eyes watering.

_We all see reflections of ourselves in our children_, Nakanawa had said._ We love our children for who they are, but we all dream of who they could be._

"Are you alright?" the man asked, looking at her with worry on his face. "I've made my move, but we can stop here—"

"I'm fine," Yoshino insisted, voice harsh.

They played the rest of the game in near silence, the man watching her as she made her moves with something bordering on anger, emptying her feelings into the chessboard.

"Oh," he said finally, thinking through her last move.

"It's a Bianchuta interference," she said.

"Plachutta," he corrected, butchering the foreign name without knowing it. "Well, that's it. I resign."

She nodded.

"Thanks for the game," she said mechanically.

"It was good," he replied, equally mechanically.

With a leaden motion, she stood up, then plodded to her and Uchida's room, looking suddenly very, very tired.

He watched her leave.

_I have a bad feeling about this_, he thought.

* * *

"Hello?" the pleasant female voice answered over the phone.

_Damn it_! Uchida thought. _What is that idiot doing?_

"Hello," she said politely and screechily, distorting her voice into her best "I am a random classmate" voice. "Is Makoto-kun there? It's…uh…Yoshihiro-san. I have a message for him from Touma. I'm on her soccer team."

She tugged at one of her pigtails nervously. She had borrowed a cell phone from Yoshino's "relative" and hid herself on the other end of the department store, in an alcove hidden in the jacket section, citing "delicate family business" as a reason for her departure.

She doubted the old lady was the type to deliberately eavesdrop on her, but she glanced around one last time, just in case.

She silently prayed that the woman on the other end of the line—Makoto's mother—would fall for her deception. It wasn't necessarily safe to call as herself and, while she could do a sterling Yoshino impersonation, that was just as risky as calling as herself. The woman would know Chiaki and Touma's voices too well for her to fake it, and the rest of the Minami family was out of consideration for the same reasons.

It was very risky—the woman had met her before, more than once.

_Maybe I should have just risked it_, Uchida second-guessed. _I mean what are the chances she would know?_

"He's in," the woman responded blandly, and Uchida barely suppressed a relieved gust of breath.

"Could you say what this is about?" Makoto's mother asked curiously.

"Well, Touma herself is busy with practice, but uh…it's rather personal, if you don't mind."

There were at least three flaws in her explanation, but it would take someone familiar with the people involved, and their school, to notice most of them.

Most.

"Hmm," the woman said skeptically. "So it's okay for you to know and not his mother? Well, I won't pry. I'll get him."

When she was sure the woman was gone, Uchida let out the suppressed gust of air. It didn't help that Makoto's mother tended to be a lot more suspicious, nowadays.

"Misawa-san?"

Makoto's voice, quizzical.

"It's not Misawa-san," Uchida said. "It's Uchida. I faked out your mother."

"Uchida?" Makoto asked, surprised. "Why did she say—"

"That's not important," she interjected, even if his confusion answered her most important question. "I want to check up on a few things. You remember what I asked you for yesterday? What happened to answering the phone personally? You promised!"

"She got there first!" Makoto defended. "And yes, of course I do."

"Well, let's hear it then!" Uchida demanded, rather acerbically.

"I do you a favor, and you act like this?" Makoto said, with a trace of annoyance.

Uchida forced herself to calm down.

"Sorry," she said. "I'm in a hurry."

"What's going on, Uchida?" Makoto asked. "What is all this?"

"All of what?" she asked.

"This whole situation," he asserted. "First all of this happens with Yoshino, then you call me and tell me you're joining her on her trip, and you want me to collect information. Then you tell me to keep my mother as out of the loop as possible, and to try to answer all phone calls today. And then you practically yell at me when I do pick up. You can't tell me that's not weird."

He paused, then more slowly:

"We talked about it at lunch. Neither Chiaki nor Touma had any idea you were going. That's confusing too. Why me?"

Uchida swallowed.

"Look," she pleaded, projecting every psychological tactic she knew into her voice, trying to sound vulnerable. "A lot of things are going on. I can't explain all of it. But I need to know. Please."

For a moment, the unnatural steadiness she had been maintaining weakened, and she gripped the diminutive phone so hard it shook.

"Alright," Makoto conceded, interrupting her sudden breakdown. "Alright."

"I asked around," he said, voice automatically lowering. "People don't seem to hold Yoshino's suspension too much against her, though they are disappointed that she couldn't be calmer. I got the sense some are happy to see the 'perfect girl' act out a little."

Uchida nodded, swallowing again, pulling herself back together

"Most people don't think your absence today is a coincidence," he continued, "or that you are really 'sick'. The rumors about you and Yoshino are running higher than I've ever seen, and they were pretty high to start with. You two are definitely the hot topic, for our class at least."

"What are they saying?" Uchida asked.

"All the usual stuff," he said, "with added flavor. Some people say there's some sort of triangle, which is new. Others say Yoshino is being blackmailed. I think my favorite one is the one alleging that she's secretly the Banchou of some delinquent group, with you and Touma as deputies."

He chuckled.

"It's surprisingly popular. People say you're the honey-trap of the group, which I would say sounds about right."

If Uchida could convey an outraged expression through the phone line, she would have.

"That is the most ridiculous —" she began, growling.

"People have tried to drill us for answers," he interrupted hastily. "I think we've done a pretty good job of stonewalling them, though. Still, a fairly good percentage of stories have gotten the right idea about your parents finding out, but I think that's just logic. No one has guessed anything about a trip. No one has hit upon anything involving Yoshino's family. The consensus is that, since she has no parents present, she can do what she wants."

"People know her parents are gone?" Uchida asked.

"They do now," Makoto said. "Those who knew have spread it around everywhere, now that it's suddenly a relevant issue.

He paused again.

"And that's it," he said. "None of this can possibly be a surprise to you. What are you looking for?"

"I didn't find it," Uchida said. "That's good news."

The whole point of this call was to check if anyone had heard anything, however implausibly, about her leaving home without permission. If they had, then there was the strong risk the news would filter back to Yoshino.

She didn't want that. Let Yoshino, at least, have some measure of peace.

She shuddered, thinking again of what had happened, what she had done. Her breathing quickened. She had overreacted, but what was done was done. How could—

"Am I going to get an explanation of this?" Makoto asked.

"No," Uchida said. "I'm sorry. That was your only hint."

"I didn't think so," Makoto said, sighing. "Well, if that's all—"

"Actually, I had something else to discuss with you," Uchida interrupted.

"What?" he asked, after a moment of surprise.

"That day we were at the café, I spotted you arguing with your friend," she said. "Given what I know about him and his uh, obsession with Yoshino, it seems too much to be a coincidence. What happened?"

She waited through the extended moment of silence.

"I'm not sure I should be sharing it," he said.

"So it _is_ about Yoshino," Uchida said. "Well?"

"Look, you're not telling me what's going on either, so I think I have the right—"

"Makoto!" she protested, then covered her mouth in embarrassment, looking around. Fortunately, no one was there to hear her.

"Come on," she argued. "I think we can both agree I have a bit of a right to know, given everything. As for what's going on here…I'll tell you when I get back. I could hardly keep you from knowing, anyway. Please?"

Makoto made a despairing noise.

"Alright, alright," he conceded. "It's not technically a secret anyway. I just don't think he would want me to say…"

"Out with it," Uchida said.

Makoto was probably the only person in the world she could successfully pressure like this, she reflected. Part of that had to do with personality, and part of it habit. She had threatened blackmail a couple of times in the distant past, and it had always worked, even though they had both known she would never really fulfill her threats.

That had been fun.

"The thing is," Makoto begun, "he heard about Yoshino's suspension, and why it had happened. He wanted to make some sort of gallant offer to do it for her, in the future. Basically, be her bodyguard."

"What?" Uchida interrupted instinctively, struck by the absurdity of it. "Do what for her?"

"Hey, don't look at me," Makoto said. "I'm just quoting him. I think the way he put it was: 'offer to beat up people like that for her, so she doesn't have to soil her beautiful hands'."

"Wow," Uchida commented.

_He reminds me of someone…_

"Anyway, I was trying to talk him out of it," Makoto said. "But he wouldn't listen to me. You guys left just in time. I don't think I could have stopped him."

Uchida made a disgusted noise.

"If it comes to it," she said. "It might be time to just tell him she's taken. Let him stew on that."

"That's—that's just the thing, though," Makoto said.

He paused.

_So this is the real reason he didn't want to say_, Uchida mentally annotated.

"He already knows," Makoto continued. "And he knows who it would be, too. I'm still denying it, but he doesn't even pretend to believe me anymore. He's been watching."

Uchida screwed her face up in confusion.

"He knows? But—"

"He knows, but he's determined to keep trying anyway," he said. "He says he's not disgusted or anything, and that he's more than willing to compete with you for her."

Uchida sat there for a moment, flabbergasted, thoughts swirling in her head.

"And you didn't want to tell me?" she demanded.

"Why would I want to tell you?" Makoto responded. "We both know he doesn't stand a chance! Snowball in hell, all of that. I'm just trying to keep the peace here. The last thing I need is for you to show up breathing jealous fire."

"That very concept is abs—" she began automatically, then stopped cold.

She was appalled that he would even think her capable of 'breathing fire'. After all, she was a nice, pleasant girl. But—

_What is this feeling?_ she thought.

It was a strange combination of rage and fear, and her eyes danced with visions of applying torment to her hapless competitor.

_Why am I so affected by something like this_? _It's practically meaningless!_ she thought. _Is—is this—_

Jealousy. Makoto was right. After all, why had she wanted to know so badly to start with?

_So, that's what it's like._

She reflected on that, then shrugged.

_That's just how it is_, she thought. _He doesn't stand a chance, but it will make me feel a lot better to keep my eye on him…and give a little friendly warning. Might as well embrace it._

A moment later, she smiled, not pleasantly. Had anyone been there to see her, they would have recoiled at the sudden cruelty of her expression.

"Hello? You there?" Makoto said.

"What is this kid's name, anyway?" she asked, bleaching the emotion out of her voice so he wouldn't pick up on why she wanted it.

"You don't know?" he asked, genuinely surprised.

"No," she asserted.

"How could you possibly not know?" he asked, confused.

"Why would I know?" she said. "We make it a point not to know useless facts like that. Yoshino never even looks at his letters, and I think we do a pretty good job of running away from his confessions."

She heard Makoto breathe into the receiver.

"And why do you _want_ to know?" he asked, finally, clearly sensing danger despite her attempts at concealment.

"Makoto," she said warningly. "We both know I will find out eventually. Why not just spare me the trouble? I assure you I won't do anything tasteless, like spread ugly rumors."

"I don't think I'm reassured," Makoto said.

"Just spill it," she ordered gravely.

Makoto sighed.

"Nakanawa," he said. "Nakanawa Takka. You sure you don't know him? Well, I guess he _is_ in a different class."

"Of course I don—" she began, then froze.

"What?" she said. "Repeat that."

"Nakanawa Takka," Makoto said. "You know, like the uh —"

"Are you serious?" she asked, voice full of shattered skepticism.

"Yes, of course I am," he said, a mite indignantly. "Naka—wait, why is it weird? Do you know him from somewhere else? Don't you see him all the time? How could you not recognize him?"

"I _don't_ know him," she said.

She paused.

"You know, Makoto," she continued, seemingly off-topic. "I've learned a lot recently. For example, that the world is _stupid_."

"What the heck are you talking about?"

She could hear Makoto's befuddlement through the phone.

" Makoto," she asked. "This friend of yours, has he ever mentioned meeting Yoshino before?"

"He says some really crazy stuff, actually," Makoto supplied, after a moment of thought. "He insists he met her before, a long time ago, even though I tell him that can't possibly be true. He refuses to ever explain, and always mumbles something about love at first sight. I wonder about him sometimes."

He paused.

"Anyway, what is all this about?" he asked. "Do you really know him from somewhere?"

_Oh this is perfect_, Uchida thought.

Uchida didn't bother to enlighten him.

"I might call you later," she said decisively. "Thanks for everything, but I think I need to go."

"Uh, O—okay. No problem," Makoto responded, nonplussed. "But what—"

She hung up.

Nakanawa Takka. What did Nakanawa-san call her son? _Ta-kun_. Where did he go for school? Why, the same school, or so she said. Same grade too. Why had they never met him? Because Yoshino said she had met him as a kid and she wanted nothing to do with a jerk like him, so they had never even tried to find him.

_Just wait until I tell Yoshino this one_, she thought.

* * *

"You sure?" Yoshino asked skeptically and ironically, looking at her out of the corner of an eye.

"Yes!" Uchida insisted, leaning towards her out of her seat.

"Huh," Yoshino said thoughtfully, rubbing her chin. "That makes a disturbing amount of sense."

"Doesn't it?" Uchida asked rhetorically.

Yoshino went back to thumbing through her theatre program. They had balcony seating for this particular event, but had arrived early, engaging their time in idle chitchat.

Uchida started to say something, disturbed by Yoshino's seeming lack of response.

"I suppose I should be less harsh when talking about him, then," Yoshino interrupted, as an aside.

"What?" Uchida said, shocked.

Yoshino glanced at her in surprise.

"Well, it's only natural to have a tiny bit of sympathy," she explained.

"No, you don't want to," Uchida said flatly.

Yoshino looked at her queerly.

"It's not like I said anything unreasonable," she said. "Why are you so worked up? What is that face you're making?"

"I'm not worked up," Uchida lied. "I just don't think it's worth having any kind of sympathy for someone like that."

Yoshino gave her another strange look, but dropped the topic, leaning forward onto her elbows.

A look of concern flashed across her eyes, immediately concealed.

"You call your parents since you got here?" she asked with deliberate carelessness, a moment later.

She watched Uchida's sudden tensing up from the corner of her eye.

"Uh, yes," Uchida lied, acting more casual than Yoshino had deemed her capable of. "It's only natural, to let them know how I'm doing. I haven't really traveled without any adults around before, so they're naturally worried."

She managed to suppress a nervous chuckle.

"Yeah, I called home too," Yoshino said airily, after glancing at a spasmodically coughing man in the row behind them. "It's good to let them know, even after everything that's happened."

"Yeah, probably," Uchida agreed insincerely.

Yoshino noted Uchida's sudden death grip on her seat armrest.

"So, uh, you ever figure out the 'catch' to your parents' behavior?" she asked.

"No. No I didn't," Uchida said, too fast and too decisively.

"Hmm," Yoshino said thoughtfully, but didn't press the line of questioning.

_It can wait_, she thought. _Not now. Not here._

She considered herself more adept at hiding her thoughts than Uchida, but could not suppress a brief conflicted expression.

"I—is something wrong?" Uchida asked nervously.

"No," Yoshino said. "Just impatient for this damn thing to start already."

_I can see you suffering, _she thought_. I can't take it anymore! This must end!_

They sat in uncharacteristic, stiff silence, and it was a relief when the stage lights finally dimmed.

Truth be told, Uchida did not really consider 'Romeo and Juliet' as amazing as people made it out be. Sure, it was pretty good, but all of that? She didn't see it. It probably worked better in the original English.

Still, though, as the play began, she couldn't suppress a certain fascination at the actors strutting about on stage, wearing their elaborate costumes, speaking their pointlessly ornate lines.

She glanced at Yoshino, who was watching with an expression that, while not enraptured, was quite intense, as if the source of all enlightenment were on stage, if only she could understand it.

Soon, Uchida understood why. The plot and dialogue, so cliché and only passably interesting when they had been obliged to read it in school, struck closer to home than ever, and she didn't need a Shakespearean expert to tell her why.

Soon, she watched the stage just as intently.

Time passed in a blur, and when it came time for the climax, Yoshino's froze her face unnaturally stiff, not trusting herself to think, or to feel. It was nothing but sophistry anyway, and she knew the plot beforehand, so why should it affect her? Any similarities to their own situation were just a complete coincidence. But the sheer idea of it—

It was then that she noticed Uchida was gone.

She startled awake from her trance, looking around in a panic.

_Shit, shit, shit—_

"I believe your friend went to the bathroom, if you're looking for her," said a voice behind her.

She whipped her head to search for the source of the voice, but couldn't trace it. Everyone behind her was watching the stage, as might be expected.

Giving up, she settled back into her seat, trying to relax.

_The bathroom. Of course. Why was I panicking? No reason to panic. Though to leave during the climax—_

She froze, then stood up so suddenly it drew annoyed complaints from those around her.

Abandoning the rest of the play, she shoved her way down the aisle and headed for the nearest restrooms.

Yoshino found her almost immediately.

She watched in silence for a while as the girl sniffled in front of the mirror, completing the last steps of pulling herself back together.

Finally, Uchida cracked open the purse next to the sink and pulled out a handkerchief, inspecting herself in the mirror, starting with the eyes.

The handkerchief dropped out of her hand, and she made a slight gasping noise. She was losing it again. Yoshino stepped forward.

She caught Uchida's hand just as she start to reach down for the lost piece of cloth.

Uchida spun around spastically, looking up with an expression of shock and dismay, quickly extinguished.

"H—hey," Uchida greeted, smiling weakly. "What are you doing here?"

Her eyes were bloodshot, there were tear tracks down her cheeks, and she couldn't possibly have believed she looked normal.

"Weren't you the one who got mad at me for hiding things?" Yoshino said. "What is this?"

"What are you talking about?" Uchida asked mechanically, clearly just going through the motions.

"Hold still," Yoshino ordered, grabbing the handkerchief in her own hand.

She bent Uchida back slightly so she could get a better view of her face and, dabbing the cloth with water from the faucet, did her best to clean Uchida's face. The whole time, those normally bright eyes watched her, reminding her of a trembling fawn.

Finally, she placed the cloth back in the purse, snapped it shut, and stepped back, taking the purse with her.

"Let's go outside," she suggested, smiling soothingly. "Forget this play. Let's just go and talk. We need it, now more than ever."

Uchida studied her face, even now still deciding, however implausibly, whether or not she should try to keep up the charade.

"Alright," she agreed, finally, looking downward.

The air outside the theatre was cool and crisp. Yoshino stood under the bright streetlamps and storefronts, looking for a suitable location. People, mostly young adults, wound their way around them. The doorman looked at them curiously.

Finally, she spotted a suitably empty bench down the block and moved for it, Uchida tailing her. Yoshino somewhat regretted coming out here, with its crowds of people, but it was too late to change her mind.

They settled down on the bench, Uchida leaning forward, elbows on knees, Yoshino turned slightly, watching her.

"I'll abridge this," Yoshino said. "I know how you're here. You never got permission to go anywhere."

"How?" Uchida asked quietly, not looking up. "Was I that obvious? I thought I did a pretty good job, even if it was stupid of me to get angry yesterday."

"You did really well, actually," Yoshino said, "Normally, I probably wouldn't have started suspecting something until today. I didn't think you capable of something like that, so I swallowed your story way too easily."

"So my parents didn't keep quiet, did they?" Uchida said, watching the legs of the pedestrians passing by her.

"Why would they?" Yoshino asked. "That was unreasonable to expect."

"I just thought maybe…" Uchida began.

She fell silent.

"How long have you known?" Uchida asked, finally.

"I heard about it just before we got here," Yoshino said.

She looked down.

"I thought I could just not say anything, but it doesn't seem like that's working very well."

"You shouldn't worry about me," Uchida asserted with sudden life, looking up. "I can take care of myself."

"I find that difficult to believe," Yoshino said.

She took a breath, then grabbed one of Uchida's shoulders, looking her seriously in the eyes.

"Like I said earlier, who's the one who got so angry about me keeping things to myself? It seems a little hypocritical of you to do the same. What do you think is going to happen? Everything is going to magically fix itself when you get back? I won't have any questions when I don't see you for a month?"

"I just wanted you to be happy for a few days," Uchida said bitterly, eyes askance. "Of course I knew it wouldn't last. I guess I couldn't even manage that."

"Stop sounding so guilty!" Yoshino insisted. "If you're going to feel guilty for something, feel guilty for doing something so crazy without even asking me! Would do you think I would have said?"

"You would never have approved," Uchida said, legs asprawl. Once, long ago, she would have swung those legs under the bench under the weight of Yoshino's displeasure.

Those days were long past, and her legs were too long.

"So why did you think it was a good idea?" Yoshino asked.

Uchida looked away, but stayed silent.

Yoshino released her grip on the girl's shoulder and leaned back to inspect her.

"If you want to be impulsive, that's one thing, but something like this is hare-brained, and you know it."

She waited, but Uchida still didn't say anything.

"I feel like I'm lecturing you," she said, "and I don't want it to be that way. I appreciate the gesture, and of course I had fun with you here, but I can only imagine the kind of repercussions you'll get from your parents when you get back."

"What do you know?" Uchida snapped sharply, glaring at her.

Yoshino recoiled, but Uchida looked instantly regretful.

"I'm sorry," she subsided. "I don't mean that."

Yoshino watched her for a long moment.

"Something's happening, isn't it?" she asked, finally.

"You've got enough on your plate," Uchida said, clearly not wanting to say. "You shouldn't have to deal with this."

"There it is again!" Yoshino said, leaning forward. "How can you possibly say that? Do you realize how contradictory you're being? You're practically quoting me!"

"This is different!" Uchida insisted, looking at her.

Then she looked away.

"You're not okay," she said quietly, mournfully. "You pretend to be, but you're not. Talking to me like this, telling me you would have been okay without me…you want to carry it all. You're driving for perfection again. I don't know if I can stop you, but the least I can do is ease your burden."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Yoshino said. "I'm fine."

"Perhaps," Uchida said.

She fell silent.

"Please," Yoshino pleaded. "Just tell me.

"It's my parents," Uchida said. "I found out what the catch was. Wednesday, when I got back from school, they told me. They're not accepting any of this. They went out and found a matchmaker. They want me to cooperate, and go out to a bunch of dinners, and keep trying until I 'find someone'. They even had someone lined up that very night. I declined."

She spoke with a sort of prepared blandness, as if she had deliberately rehearsed these lines so she wouldn't fall apart saying them. The only exception was the last sentence, which she practically spat out.

"People still do that?" Yoshino asked, appalled.

"Of course they do," Uchida said bitterly.

"At your age, I mean," Yoshino clarified. "I thought that was strictly confined to people like me or people old enough to be desperate."

"Apparently not," Uchida grieved. "Apparently there's still some demand. I wonder how many girls' lives they've ruined."

Yoshino watched her, trying to think of something to say.

"Do you have any idea how I felt?" she asked, exploding in Yoshino's face unexpectedly. "How angry, how painful—"

She cut herself off, taking exactly two deep breaths.

"When Touma left her house to stay with you, when I heard about that, I thought I'd never understand something like that," she continued. "I understand now. 'How can I live with these people?' 'Where can I go?' That's all I spent the night thinking about. I needed to get out."

"The worst part is," she said, taking measured breaths to maintain calm. "The worst part is, I still love them. It makes everything worse."

"You could have—" Yoshino began.

"How could I possibly tell you?" Uchida demanded. "I knew how badly you needed a break. How could I ruin it?"

She looked down.

"I did mean to ask, I really did," she said. "But how could I? How could their answer possibly be yes? And I thought, maybe I can kill two birds with one stone."

She paused.

"Do you know how happy you looked, when I said I was going?" she said quietly, painfully. "I wished I could stay in that moment forever. But of course I couldn't."

Yoshino blinked away sudden tears, the words resonating in her heart.

"Of course you can't," she said, watching the black, black sky, stars washed out by the light of the streetlamps. She allowed their ambiance to wash over her, so that she could give voice to the thoughts that had tormented her.

"All I wanted, over these past, miserable days, was for time to turn back, stand still. I wanted to keep it all just the way it was. I didn't want to think about my future. I didn't want to face all of this. I wanted it always to be me and my friends, holding parties and having fun. Always you and me, burning the night away, arguing over stupid things, doing whatever. Looking back, that's all I've wanted for years. For things to stay exactly like that. Was it so bad to wish something like that?"

Uchida looked at her, and she looked back, and for far too short a moment, they understood each other perfectly.

But that moment ended too.

"Well, at least it's been a fun two days, right?" Uchida asked, eyes wet. "And we've got two more. Let's make the most of it."

Yoshino nodded.

"Yeah," she agreed.

She blinked away her tears, then looked around her carefully.

"But let's refrain from any affectionate gestures," she said. "We _are_ still in public, and we're lucky no one eavesdrops on two strangers on a bench. Or no one we care about, anyway."

Uchida smiled.

* * *

"Do you remember the last time we came to an amusement park like this?" Uchida asked, bright and early the next day, spreading her arms wide to indicate all that was around her.

It was far too early in the year for amusement parks to really make sense, given the chill. Perhaps that was why the crowds stayed home. It was strange for the place to even be open.

It was an auspicious day, though. It was warmer than normal, and the light snow blanketing the area had melted the day before. The sun shone with surprising force.

Yoshino stayed silent, nursing her tired headache, privately cursing global warming or whatever target seemed rational to blame. She regretted not wearing a sunhat.

Uchida's hat flopped as the girl dropped her arms. She had been smarter; their observations of the weather had been why they impulsively decided to go, after all

"I know you do," Uchida said, almost pouting.

"That was a long time ago," Yoshino said hoarsely. "I'm—sorry, I'm just a little tired."

"I know you are," Uchida said, "But come on, you have to at least pretend to care."

Yoshino stayed silent.

"Hey, a cotton candy stand!" Uchida exclaimed, turning her head and moving in its general direction. Yoshino followed.

She grabbed Uchida's hand before she could reach into her purse, using her own money to pay the vendor. Uchida made a noise of protest, which she ignored. It was ritualistic.

"I don't remember the last time I paid for anything in your presence," Uchida commented a while later, tearing off pieces of the spun fibers.

"I don't either," Yoshino agreed.

"Want some?" Uchida offered, sticking her left hand out with a sticky piece of puff.

Instead of answering, Yoshino spun around and headed back for the stand.

"So you wanted one too," Uchida commented, as Yoshino collected her change from the cheerily smiling man, clearly surprised and pleased by the unexpected business.

"It helps," Yoshino said.

Yoshino collected her refined sugar and focused on consuming it, hoping it would energize her somehow.

"What about the last time we went to a festival? You remember that?" Uchida asked.

"I don't remember anything like that," Yoshino said.

Uchida frowned, studying her briefly, but shrugged.

They walked forward at a leisurely pace. There was no rush. Practically no one was there.

"Oh, hey, a goldfish-catching stand!" Uchida exclaimed, turning directly to her right.

Yoshino seized Uchida's arm, dragging her to a stop.

"We're not going through that again," she said, too tired to be more diplomatic. "We're too far away from my home to be able to put the fish anywhere, and I know you won't leave until we catch one."

Her head felt stuffed full of wool, unable to process even the simplest of things. She was unable even to notice Uchida's slight smile, much less realize why she was smiling.

"I knew you really remembered," Uchida said playfully. "What kind of amusement park has a goldfish-catching stand? That's a festival-type thing, and the whole thing with the goldfish was last time we went to one."

"I don't think I want to remember," Yoshino said.

"I can imagine why," Uchida commented, a touch sourly.

"I'm sorry about misleading you like that," Yoshino said, managing to give the proper response. "I never did get a chance to properly apologize."

"And I'm sorry for being so gullible," Uchida said, striding off and pulling Yoshino by the hand to make her follow. "That kind of explanation—'we had taken a shower,' you said. 'We were too sleepy from the alcohol to get dressed again,' you said.—quite a sterling explanation. What was I, stupid?"

"You didn't want to believe the obvious," Yoshino commented, head down. "It was easy enough to exploit. And maybe you want to keep your voice down?"

"There's no one here. And don't sound so condescending to someone you need to apologize to," Uchida said, still dragging Yoshino forward with aplumb. "But I forgive you anyway. Was that the first time?"

"You know very well it was," Yoshino said.

Uchida stopped abruptly, causing Yoshino to almost run into her.

Uchida turned around.

"What is it?" she asked, grabbing Yoshino's head and feeling for a fever. "I know you had a bad night—you woke me up at least five times with your tossing and turning—but why?"

"You know very well why," Yoshino said. "Unlike you, not all of us are capable of pretending everything is okay."

Uchida frowned, the smile dropping off her face briefly.

"That's untrue," she said. "I know you. You're more than capable of faking it if necessary."

"Not for so long," Yoshino said. "I didn't sleep well yesterday either. Or did you miss it? I've been making it up with naps and sleeping in late, and today we got up early."

Uchida watched her carefully.

"You know what would cheer you up?" she said, suddenly bright, standing up with hands on hips. "A ride—"

"I don't feel well enough to ride the roller coaster," Yoshino interrupted. "Even if we are standing right in front of one."

Uchida frowned sharply.

"I'm sorry," Yoshino said. "Go without me for now. I'll see if I can find a coffee shop. I promise I'll be more fun afterward."

"Alright," Uchida said. "But at least take my hat. You look like you need it."

She took off the accessory and offered it to Yoshino, who refused with a wave of the hand.

"I'll be fine," the girl said.

Truth be told, Uchida secretly hated roller coasters; Yoshino was the one who had a strange fascination with them, riding them in complete silence, almost as if she was studying them.

Uchida kept up the smile nonetheless, and got in the short line, amazed and secretly glad there even _was_ a line. What were these other people? Insane?

Her smile lasted until Yoshino was out of sight.

_We're miserable_, she thought, expression fading.

She apologized, pushing past the young couple behind her to exit the line. She had no urge to go.

She sat on a bench near the ride exit, taking in the sights, until Yoshino returned, sipping a paper cup of caffeine as fast as she could without burning her tongue—which wasn't very fast, but still.

"So you're back!" she greeted cheerily, getting up.

"In more ways than one," Yoshino said, smiling meekly. "Want to go for another ride?"

"Of course," Uchida said, nodding vigorously.

Before getting on, they left their bags with the attendant.

"Did you buy something?" Uchida asked. "Your bag looks heavier than I remember."

"Yeah," Yoshino said, nodding. "It's a surprise, though."

"Oh," Uchida said, suitably surprised.

The roller coaster was just as bad as she remembered. She hated the sensation of air crushing her chest every time she went down a hill, and could never quite shake the intimation that her restraints would fail spectacularly at the worst possible time.

Still, she congratulated herself on managing to exit the ride without staggering. That was something.

"I feel like I should probably say this," Yoshino said, as they recovered their bags from the pegs from which they hung.

"Yes?" Uchida asked, trying to be chipper.

"You don't…actually like roller coasters, do you?" Yoshino asked.

Uchida descended into a coughing fit, startled in the middle of trying to swallow to calm herself. She leaned against the wooden railing, pinning her bag to the wall with her body.

"Why—why would you say that?" she managed finally.

"You don't have to lie," Yoshino said with faux magnanimity, walking away. "I've always suspected you don't. It's fun to watch your reactions, though."

Uchida blinked in her wake.

"What?" she demanded, charging towards Yoshino. "You baka-yaro! I was trying to be nice, and you—"

She stopped short, eyes focusing on the object Yoshino had thrust in her face.

"One of these damn stuffed horses you like so much," Yoshino, looking away to hide her embarrassment. "It really is eerie how every place we visit manages to have one."

Uchida grabbed it with both hands.

"I—I, well, I mean, thanks. I love these things! They're so cute!"

"So you've told me," Yoshino said drily. "Many times."

"You don't have to be embarrassed," Uchida said ecstatically, throwing her arms over Yoshino's shoulders. "I'm happy!"

She opened her eyes a moment later, frowning. Yoshino looked decidedly glum.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"You should think of it as something to remember me by," Yoshino said. "For when your parents hermetically seal you into your room. Or worse."

"Come on," Uchida enticed, rubbing her head into Yoshino's hair. "Didn't we promise to enjoy ourselves? Why do you keeping brooding over that?"

Yoshino stayed silent.

Uchida opened her eyes again when she felt Yoshino make some abrupt shifting motions with her head.

It turned out that Yoshino was actively trying to gesture at the people around them, moving her eyes and pointing with her head. Indeed, there were a couple of people looking at them curiously.

"Please remember where we are," Yoshino said, finally, avoiding their glances.

Uchida pulled back.

"What do we care?" she asked, pouting. "We don't live here. No one here knows us, and I honestly don't see how things could get any worse if they did. Aren't you the one who wants to do weird things like that? Why do I feel like we've reversed roles?"

Yoshino withheld comment, instead starting to walk again.

"Come on," she said, gesturing with her hand. "I see another roller coaster. We're going to keep riding them until you like it."

"It doesn't work that way!" Uchida pleaded, arms outspread.

Yoshino turned, giving her a quirky smile.

"I got Touma to like Earl Grey. If I can do that, anything is possible!"

With sudden energy, she offered her hand and smiled winningly.

Uchida turned away slightly, pouting again, trying to resist the smile.

"I hate you," she said.

She grabbed Yoshino's hand.

"Fine then," she said. "But it's not going to work."

"We'll see."

* * *

"I'm sorry about making us come back," Uchida apologized.

"For the last time, stop apologizing!" Yoshino asserted, advancing up the staircase with a determined pace. "It's not your fault. I should never have pushed you so hard."

"But…" Uchida began, dragging the sentence out to look behind them.

"Something wrong?" Yoshino asked cannily.

Uchida shook her head.

"Probably just my imagination"

"Anyway," Yoshino continued, turning to go up another flight of stairs. "If there's anything you did wrong, it's not telling me the pendulum ride would make you sick."

"I didn't know!" Uchida said. "I've never been on one of those before…"

"Well, in either case, our tickets are good for the rest of the day, so we can go back after dinner."

"You want to go back?" Uchida asked incredulously.

She thought she saw Yoshino's back tense a little, bag settling against her shoulder.

"Well, you know…" Yoshino began, the rest of the sentence degenerating into mumbled incoherence.

Uchida strained her ears, barely making out the phraseology.

"You want to ride the Ferris wheel?" she asked.

"Well, it's a nice day," Yoshino extemporized. "And there's lights at nighttime and such. And, you know—"

"It's maybe the most cliché thing we could possibly do," Uchida said drily. "Not that there's anything wrong with that. Yeah, sure, why not."

"Don't be embarrassed," she added, teasing.

"Well, we're here," Yoshino said unnecessarily, grabbing for the doorknob with undue haste.

"Yes, yes, thank you, goodbye," the woman said, just as the door swung open. Since she was second in, it took Uchida a moment of confusion to realize that the woman was on the phone.

The woman hung up, and it seemed to her that both she and the seated man next to her looked vaguely guilty about something.

"Something important?" Yoshino asked.

"Oh, not at all," the woman said, "Just a telemarketer."

"I see," Yoshino said simply, placing her bag on the floor. "May—"

She cut herself short, and instead stepped into the kitchen while Uchida sat down on the sofa, dropping her bag next to her.

Yoshino reemerged with two cups of water, and Uchida realized what had happened.

Yoshino's instincts, quite understandably, were to ask others to do things such as getting water for her. She was typically quite canny about keeping that part of her under wraps, but just now she had slipped, just a little.

Yoshino placed one glass in front of Uchida, chugged her own, then placed her empty cup on the table.

"I'm going to be taking a long nap," she said simply, walking over to recover her bag.

With that, she departed for their room.

Uchida looked at the empty cup on the table.

Proper manners would have been for Yoshino to wash it herself, on the spot.

_She must really be tired,_ Uchida thought.

* * *

Closely pressed, Uchida would not have been able to properly explain why she chose to check up on a sleeping Yoshino. Perhaps she had heard something without quite realizing it. Perhaps something Yoshino had said had registered on her subconscious. Maybe it was both. Maybe it was neither—there was a chance she would have done so even if nothing were wrong.

Regardless of why, however, the fact remained that exactly forty minutes after Yoshino had closed the door behind her, Uchida placed her hand on the doorknob and, ever so gently, pushed the door inward, expecting to find an exhausted Yoshino doing her best impression of an immobile log on the bed.

Instead she found the girl in question seated at the desk, half-heartedly attempting to pry the cap off a bottle of liquor, head slumped to the table.

Uchida blinked, eyes blurring, then focused again on the sight in front of her, the room clarifying. Somehow, she wasn't surprised.

"I'm sure they have bottle openers," she said, slipping in and closing the door behind her.

Yoshino's head snapped around, hand dropping the bottle with a thunk.

"But there's no way I'm going to get you one," Uchida finished. "Where did you even get that?"

"Amusement park," Yoshino said dully, turning back to face the wooden table in front of her. "Paid some poor-looking man to buy it for me. Fed him some bullshit story, which I doubt he believed."

The clock on the wall ticked.

"What's wrong?" Uchida asked quietly. "I don't have to tell you this isn't like you. This door doesn't have a lock. You'd never take a risk like that."

"I can't sleep," Yoshino said. "Haven't slept in days. I thought I'd try something new."

"You know that's not what I'm asking."

Yoshino slumped onto the table, and Uchida stepped forward to view her countenance. Yoshino's body language spoke of nothing but exhaustion.

"I can't take it anymore," the fallen figure said. "I just can't _take it_!"

She spoke the last line with clenched teeth, sitting up, exerting a force of will to keep from screaming it.

"I'm sorry," she said, slumping back down.

"It's okay," Uchida said impotently, shifting on her feet, wanting to hug her, knowing this wasn't the time.

"I can't do it," Yoshino lamented. "I have no idea how to even start. "I've made promises left and right. I told you I'd solve our problems. I told my mother I'd make things up to her. I told the student council I'd help organize the upcoming ceremonies. I told my parents I'm going to meet them. And on and on and on. I'm on the hook for promises I didn't even make myself, obligations my _grandfather _made. Half of them I don't want to do, and most of them I don't even know _how_."

Yoshino looked forward, into the middle distance, eyes wide, and Uchida could tell that she wasn't looking at the table, or the books stacked on it, or the wall. She wasn't seeing anything at all, except a terrifying future she didn't know how to face.

"Just try your best," Uchida said tritely, quietly aware that she lacked the tools to give any real help. "You don't have to do everything perfectly."

"That's the thing, though!" Yoshino said, glaring at her with some vehemence. "You keep saying that, but I can't be _not_ perfect. I can't! People are counting on me. I can't let them down—"

"Then forget them!" Uchida interjected, with sudden rage. "Why are you still hung up on this? Why are you so obsessed with this? It's not that you can't let them down, is it? You can't let _yourself_ down!"

Yoshino didn't even argue this point, returning to staring in front of her with empty eyes.

_That's right_, Uchida thought. _I don't have to know what she needs to do._

"Normal people don't overburden themselves like this," Uchida added, leaning over Yoshino. "Normal people don't breakdown when they can't fulfill. Normal people just accept that some things just happen, and get some damn _sleep_."

"I'm not normal," Yoshino growled. "No matter how you look at it."

The clock on the wall counted the seconds, and Uchida suppressed an irrational urge to tear it down and smash it.

"What about you?" Yoshino asked. "All happy-go-lucky and worry-free. We both know that's a lie, but you keep the mask up anyway. I tried, but I can't do it. What's even the point?"

Uchida looked off to the side briefly.

"It hurts, you know, all of this," she said. "I smile because if I don't, I'll crack. It's hard, forgetting what's going to happen when we get back, but it's the only way. Maybe I'll have a crying fit when this is over, but for now, I can live in the moment."

"And that's another miserable thing," Yoshino said. "We can't. However much I want to, we can't. Tomorrow always comes. Tomorrow, we'll pack our bags and head home, and we won't even be able to smile."

"Life is like that," Uchida said.

She looked down, mourning the world as it was.

"It doesn't have to be," Yoshino said. Uchida looked at Yoshino's sudden intense look with surprise.

"All of this agonizing is artificial, when you get down to it," Yoshino said, almost whisper-quiet. "Even now, I have more money than I know what to do with. I know how to access it. I could transfer most of it out with only a few phone calls. With that done, we could pretend to head home, get "delayed", then go hide in a hotel somewhere. I'm confident I can get us fake ID's. Then, when they stop seriously looking for us, we could even fly out of the country, visit all those places you wanted to visit. And once we hit age of majority, we're free. None of this would ever matter again."

_Free_.

The word hit Uchida with an unexpected force, leaving her slightly dizzy. An enticing future opened itself in front of her eyes. Just the two of them, without a care in the world.

"I had to get completely desperate before I would think of something like this," Yoshino continued, "but it was the play that gave me the idea. Why not run away, like they did? There's nothing really stopping us. I won't have to deal with all these absurd problems, and neither will you."

Yoshino looked at her, eyes brimming with tears.

"We could do whatever we wanted," she said. "Just live our lives, travel the world, with no worries or problems. Wouldn't that be grand?"

Yoshino grabbed her hands, looking up at her. Uchida looked back into those achingly beautiful eyes, lit with an insane fire.

In that one instant of time, Yoshino was entirely serious, willing to do it all. All it would take is her word.

Her head reeled. Visions danced in front of her. Eating food on hotel rooftops. Visiting pandas in China. Swimming in Hawaii. Every fantasy she had had as a child—it was all possible. All her problems gone. Just one word.

But it was _wrong_. She could feel that in her heart, the same way she had when Yoshino had asked her before, all those years ago. It would be running away, not just in the strictly physical sense, but in every possible sense. She knew that, and she knew Yoshino knew that. But Yoshino—Yoshino was thinking about it anyway.

She shook her head slowly, and it was more painful than she would ever again care to admit.

"You're right," she said, eyes strangely wet. "It would be grand. But you know we can't. Even after all that's happened, they're still my parents. I can't just leave them. And I know you can't leave it behind either. I know you love them. You can't hurt them like that."

The feverish light in Yoshino's eyes dimmed.

"I can't," Yoshino agreed, looking down. "But I can't think of anything else worth doing. I—"

Yoshino was silent, and it took Uchida a moment to realize she was crying, softly.

"You know what the worst part is?" Yoshino asked rhetorically, fighting to say it through the tears. "I understand. I finally understand."

"What?" Uchida asked, when Yoshino didn't continue.

"My parents," Yoshino said, tears flowing slowly. "My father. That's exactly what they were doing. Running away from everything. I was just another problem to be cast aside."

Yoshino swallowed with effort.

"I can't forgive them," she said. "I'll never forgive them. But I _understand_. I wish I didn't. I liked it better when I could just hate them as monsters."

She looked to the side.

"It's all there, you know," she said. "I looked it up. Climb up my family tree just a little and you see everything. Violence. Alcoholism. It haunts me now. I think back to all those times I fought as a kid, all those I wanted nothing better than to break someone's face, and I worry. I remember all our experiments with the alcohol, how much I enjoyed being drunk, and I worry. I can't be that. That's why I can't bear seeing my parents. The last I want to do is meet them, and realize I'm just like them."

She shuddered.

"That's why I have to be perfect," she added shakily. "It's redemption. I want everyone to remember. I am not my goddamn _family_."

Something clicked in Uchida's head.

The moment she had been waiting for had finally arrived. She knew what to do.

She embraced Yoshino's head in a motherly posture that was faintly absurd, given their relative heights.

"I don't know why all this had to happen," she said. "I don't know why everything had to be the way it was. It doesn't matter. The world doesn't stand still, but we can make _us_ stay the same. No matter what changes, we can always be like this. _That _is what matters."

She felt Yoshino's tears start to soak her shirt.

Uchida took a breath.

"I know now what I want from you," she said. "What I've always wanted from you."

"I wanted to be your savior. Somehow, I knew what you were trying to do, and I wanted to be the one to help you do it, the one to save you from it. I wanted someone to need me."

Yoshino gripped her shirt sleeves.

"You can act perfect all you want," Uchida said. "Or not. Just remember that you aren't. If you can't take it, if it's too much for you, remember that there's one person in the world you don't have to act perfect in front of. That's why I'm here. It's what I want."

She fell into silence, patting Yoshino's head, letting her cry.

* * *

Eventually, without prompting, Yoshino began to talk, lying on Uchida's chest while she sat on the bed. She talked about the past, and the future, and the present, things she never shared, things she had kept private, trivial and important, and Uchida listened.

"You know," she said, looking up at the ceiling, "when I was a kid, I was afraid that if I talked, I would scare people away. Everyone always looked at me funny whenever I talked. I didn't understand, then. I thought that if I said anything, everyone would realize what kind of terrible child I was, and they would leave me. It's funny to think about now, but that's what I believed."

Uchida nodded placidly.

"I know," she said. "And the reason everyone looked at you strangely was because you talked too eloquently for your age and, later on, because they were surprised to hear you talk at all. Eventually it became a habit."

"That's why I loved my books so much," Yoshino said. "And I dragged you into doing those acting skits. I wanted to pretend to be someone else, because I wasn't happy with who I was."

Uchida nodded. She had figured this out, too.

"I never really cared much for the student council," Yoshino said. "I only joined to prove myself. The truth was, I would much rather have spent those afternoons walking home with you and everyone else."

"I suspected as much," Uchida said, patting Yoshino's hair complacently.

"And I really only shop to keep you company," Yoshino said. "To tell the truth, I'm not usually that interested, except when there's something interesting about it, like that one time with Touma."

Uchida's hand froze.

"Really?" Uchida asked, betrayed. "Seriously? You always seem so enthusiastic—"

"And the truth is," Yoshino interrupted. "I actually like those stuffed horses of yours, but I've teased you too much about it to admit that now. They really are quite cute."

"I knew it!" Uchida exclaimed, leaning forward to try and look down at Yoshino's face. "You finally admit it! I—"

She stopped and narrowed her eyes.

"You're changing the sub—"

"Same thing about why I always make fun of your eating habits," Yoshino interrupted. "I'm just envious about your ability to do that and still look so good. Though I do have my reasons for trying to keep you thin…"

"Perverted reasons," Uchida quipped.

"The first time I realized just what I wanted from you," Yoshino added, "I was mortified. I tried to secretly do my own laundry, even though it was completely unnecessary, and I added bleach for some crazy reason. We had to throw it all out. It was my favorite nightshirt…"

Uchida tilted her head in perplexity.

"I don't think I follow," she said.

"It doesn't matter," Yoshino said. "What do you think of Touma?"

"What about Touma?" Uchida asked.

"Don't you think she's attractive?" Yoshino asked pensively. "I think so, though I'm not sure I should be admitting that to you—"

Uchida grabbed Yoshino's head into a vise-like grip with both hands, forcing her head up so that they made eye contact.

"I'll take that as a no," Yoshino managed, cheeks squeezed together. Uchida's expression wasn't exactly friendly.

Yoshino sat up when Uchida let go, finally breaking the contact.

"I had no idea you were the jealous type," Yoshino said, trying to smooth out her hair.

Uchida watched her with an aggrieved expression.

"Alright, alright, I apologize," Yoshino said. "I wasn't being serious anyway. I was just distracting your attention."

"Distracting—" Uchida began.

"You know what I want to do someday?" Yoshino asked. "I would love to adopt a child when I'm old enough. Probably a daughter. I'd love to—"

"Wait," Uchida said, holding up a hand for her to stop, other hand plastered to forehead in a mime of a headache. "I can't tell anymore. Are you being serious or are you just messing with me? You haven't made any sense at all ever since you started talking about shopping."

Yoshino smiled thinly, perhaps amused.

"I can't believe you!" Uchida said. "I thought we were having a moment."

"Oh, we are," Yoshino said.

"Then—" Uchida began.

She wasn't able to finish the sentence, finding her words suffocated by a kiss.

She pushed Yoshino away.

"Not here, you i—" she began.

The door to their room slammed behind them, and she realized it had opened just moments earlier.

"You are an idiot," Uchida growled, quite sincerely. "What were you thinking, risking being seen like that?"

"I probably am an idiot," Yoshino agreed. "But they would have found out eventually. In fact, I suspect they've been already been told and are just hiding it. I thought it was an acceptable risk."

"You are an idiot," Uchida repeated.

The girl tilted her head, leaning over Uchida.

"I think we should hide out here for a while longer, don't you agree?" Yoshino said.

"Only if you keep your hands to yourself," Uchida said.

"Fine," Yoshino said, sitting back up, pouting.

That was a rare expression for her.

* * *

They waited, and waited, for the door to open again.

Finally, just when they were about to give up and go out themselves, the door opened, but it was not who they expected.

It took them a moment to realize who it was, and then they were downright shocked.

"Arisawa?" Yoshino and Uchida said, simultaneously.

"You shaved your moustache!" Uchida added.

"Yes," Arisawa agreed.

He bowed, greeting them.

"What are you doing here?" Yoshino asked.

"You really think we'd let you go traveling on your own?" he asked rhetorically. "I was tailing you the whole time. It's amazing how easily you can hide in plain sight with just a minor facial hair adjustment."

They stared at him incredulously.

"Anyway," he said, looking down on them from his standing position. "I was called in because her parents thought things were getting out of hand. First, they hear crying and then, when they try to check up on you, they find—well you know what they found."

"Did they know?" Yoshino asked, cutting straight to the point.

"Yes," Arisawa said, voice sonorous.

"Then I was lied to," Yoshino said.

Arisawa shrugged.

"It was to keep you two under control," he said. "We wanted you to think you needed to hide it."

Yoshino opened her mouth to speak, but Arisawa cut her off, speaking first.

"Is everything alright, young mistress?" he asked. "They are terribly worried, and I am as well. That is why I was called here. They do not think things are well."

"It's fine," Yoshino said, eyes downcast. "Why would they call you instead of talking to us directly?"

"They did not feel it was their place," he said. "I have known you for far longer."

"They shouldn't worry about that," Yoshino said. "Tell them that. And tell them—"

She paused, then took a breath.

"I'll tell them myself later, but you can say it too. I'm sorry for all of this. I took advantage of their hospitality, accepted their gifts, and ended up causing nothing but trouble. It's inexcusable."

Arisawa tilted his head.

"Alright," he said. "But I do not think it is as bad as all that. A logical corollary of them having been informed is that they were prepared for this eventuality. The truth is, they were told to be wary of something like this. Indeed, they spotted it coming."

Yoshino stood up decisively, pulling Uchida with her.

She shook her head.

"No. I will go apologize in person. They are my…grandparents, after all."

"Are you really alright?" Arisawa asked, when she reached the doorway.

She stopped.

The truth was, she had seen the door open and the old woman look in. That was why she had done it, regardless of whether they actually knew or not.

Things had to be faced. No more running away.

She squeezed Uchida's hand, and nodded.


	6. Carpe Diem

They lingered on the train platform a good deal longer than they needed to, long after the other passengers on their train had made their way out.

"Having second thoughts?" Yoshino asked, trying to lighten the mood. "It's too late now to change your mind. There's no running away to New York or Paris now."

She tried to hide her nervousness, but it still leaked out in the awkwardness of the joke.

"I hear they're overrated anyway," Uchida said sourly.

Yoshino watched Uchida's face. She hadn't really expected it to work.

Arisawa listened to them with a bland expression.

Sighing, Yoshino pulled out her cell phone, more out of habit than anything.

"Well, they got here half an hour ago," she said, immediately putting the unnecessary phone away. "When we walk out the ticket gate, they're probably going to be right there waiting. Be ready."

Yoshino gestured at the stairwell leading down from the elevated platform, towards the station entrance.

Uchida responded by taking a deep breath and walking forward, body language a curious mixture of defiance and timidity. Might as well get it over with.

Yoshino followed a few paces behind, tailed by Arisawa, carrying all of their luggage. He had remained curiously silent the whole trip back, and didn't seem about to change that policy anytime soon.

"It sure went by fast, huh?" Yoshino said, one hand grasping the railing.

Uchida nodded absently, mind clearly not on the conversation.

They stepped out into the high-ceilinged entranceway, passing a few late-arrivers going the other way, cursing their poor timing. The size of the room, contrasted with the few weekend passengers, combined to create an impression of great emptiness.

Still, it was proving surprisingly difficult to spot Uchida's parents. Maybe they weren't waiting inside after all.

"I don't see them," Arisawa said.

Heading for the exits near the ticket readers, Yoshino blinked at a small group of people heading for them. Then she realized why they hadn't spotted them.

Her expectations had been incorrect. Instead of two people, Uchida's parents were flanked by two others. Specifically, Touma and Chiaki.

She watched Uchida take another deep breath, and realized the presence of more people must only make it worse.

To her surprise, Chiaki and Touma pushed ahead of the other two.

"I'm surprised to see you here," Yoshino said. "Scratch that, I'm _glad_."

Truth be told, she wasn't really sure if she was glad, but it seemed like the polite thing to say.

"We have a present for Uchida here," Touma said, presenting the girl in question with a small white cardboard box, plastered with pictures and syllabary.

"A cell phone?" Uchida said, surprised, but still not surprised enough to take her eyes off her parents, who were now looming over the four of them. They had their arms crossed, waiting for them to finish.

The suspense only made it worse.

"We pooled our money and bought it," Touma said. "Of course, it's your responsibility to buy minutes for it."

"Sorry, but you triggered too much of Makoto's curiosity," Chiaki said, with a non-apologetic expression. "And he apologizes for breaching your secret, but he thought it was the right thing to do."

"I'm not really surprised," Uchida said fatalistically, turning the box over in her hands, but her eyes were unfocused. Clearly, she wasn't quite capable of focusing on a cell phone at that moment in time.

"Oh, and, uh, thank you," she added, seconds late.

"They were quite insistent, and it seemed reasonable," Uchida's mother said, stepping forward, her voice casting an instant chill on the conversation despite its perfectly pleasant tone.

"Someday we will pay you back," the woman added.

Yoshino clenched her fists, not out of anger, but only to steady herself. She took a breath.

"A lot has happened," Yoshino said without giving pointless context.

She needed to get it said fast. She was walking on extremely thin ice—assuming she wasn't already in the water.

She smiled nervously, kneading her hands behind her back.

"But it's not as bad as all that," she said, doing her best to ignore that she was probably the worst person to say what she was about to say. "Uchida here is back, we're all safe and sound, and really, all it meant was a few days of missed school. Not a huge deal, ultimately, and maybe you'll be willing to show some leniency, given her age, since fifteen is after all—"

"Save it," Uchida's father said bluntly.

She saved it.

Uchida looked down at her feet, silent.

"We've called off the matchmaking," Uchida's mother said. "We honestly didn't think it would be as earth-shattering as all this. It's not worth it."

"And _that i_s all the leniency she'll get," her father followed, severely, without even the tiniest of gaps. "We're not in the habit of rewarding bad behavior, especially not of this magnitude. If you really hated it that much, Yuka, you should have said so."

"I _did_ say so," Uchida said bitterly.

"More fervently, then."

"That's enough," her mother interrupting, putting a hand on her husband's shoulder.

She turned, making it clear that what she was about to say was intended for all of them.

"Yuka-chan will have to make good on what she said," the woman said. "She will spend now until high school examinations studying in her room, with nothing to distract her. Nothing. There will be no study sessions outside our home. If you want to study with her, you'll have to come to her. Cell phone time will be limited."

She gave them all a look, and they nodded to show they understood—well, except Arisawa, who put his skills to good use by continuing to blend into the background seamlessly.

"And," she continued, making a sentence out of the word. "Yoshino-san will not be invited."

Yoshino let out a breath. Well, she didn't really expect any better.

Switching away from her personal name, though. That hurt.

"What high schools will she be applying to?" Chiaki asked, and Yoshino realized, suddenly, that it was suddenly a _very_ important question.

"Whatever matches her academics and is in the area," her mother said. "So something high-end. We don't intend to bias it away from the rest of you, if that's what you're wondering. I suspect Yoshino-chan will be applying to the same places, even though she could probably do even better."

The four of them shared a look, even Uchida, looking up from the corner of her eye. Her mother didn't know there were other problems involved.

_"Tell them what's going on," _she had advised Uchida on the train. _"They don't know. If they do, perhaps the sympathy will help."_

Looking at Uchida's resigned expression, though, she wondered if it would happen, and how long it would take for child and parents to rebuild proper lines of communication. Months, perhaps.

"Other issues, we'll discuss amongst ourselves over time," Uchida's father said, in a masterpiece of euphemism. "We may include you in the resolution. Perhaps"

He turned, heading for the door, without ending with a farewell.

"Well, we'll be going," her mother said, bowing politely.

"Be well," she said.

All else aside, at least it sounded sincere.

They moved to leave, but Uchida turned, giving Yoshino's hand a squeeze, a gesture the others watched: Touma and Chiaki with interest, Uchida's parents with guarded, unreadable faces.

Yoshino didn't know when during the past few minutes Uchida had managed to write a note, but she found a piece of paper clutched in her hand. It said simply:

"I believe in you."

* * *

They met her head maid in the station parking lot, next to Arisawa's usual car. Like all of them, she was wearing a jacket against the wind.

They exchanged pleasantries, and got in, Arisawa in the driver's seat, the other two in the back.

"I'm surprised you even know how to drive," Yoshino said. "No offense, but I don't think I've ever seen you do it."

"Don't underestimate me," the woman said defensively. "I have my license."

"She got it back when you first moved here," Arisawa commented, watching the road. "She was considering driving you to school herself, so she asked me to teach her. I think it's been gathering dust since then, though."

The woman grunted in annoyance.

"Don't get too cocky, Arisawa."

"It's better leave the driving to the professionals," he commented, keeping a straight face even though everyone knew he was enjoying it.

"It's not as if I was going to cut your salary," the woman said. "Though that's definitely starting to sound like a good idea."

"You were a terrible student," Arisawa said.

"Say any more and it's going to be minus twenty percent instead of ten."

The banter was soothing, in a way, but Yoshino needed to drive the conversation onward.

She cleared her throat, then explained what had happened to Uchida.

When it was clear she was done, the woman thought about it, then shrugged expressively.

"Not to be blasé, but I thought as much," she said, strangely detached. "It's about the best you can expect."

"What about me?" Yoshino asked.

The woman looked at her.

"Arisawa told me that you seemed authentically surprised when I called you," she said, "And I'm inclined to believe him. It wasn't your fault."

Yoshino stayed silent for a moment, digesting that.

"Will you be alright?" her mother asked, looking at her from the corner of her eye, a trace of concern in her voice. "You haven't been separated from her for more than a week since…well, more than a decade. I don't want to treat you like a porcelain doll, but will you need support?"

"I should be insulted," Yoshino, looking at paneling in front of her. "Everyone keeps treating me like a mental patient, like I'll go insane without her."

"I'm sorry," the woman said, rather insincerely. "I was just concerned. I won't say I approve of your relationship, but you and I both know—"

"No, I understand," Yoshino interrupted. "You didn't let me finish. I said I _should_ be insulted. But you're absolutely right. It's a legitimate concern. In that sense, I really am like a mental patient."

"You don't have to put it quite like _that_."

Yoshino sighed.

"I think I'll be alright this time," she said, hoping the words were true. "We had a little talk."

She paused.

"For as long as she's gone, I think I'll try to ask less of myself. It's not healthy, and it's only for some months."

Her mother raised an eyebrow at that.

"Then perhaps you will be alright," she said.

She leaned over and grabbed Yoshino by the shoulder.

"I know I put a lot of expectations on you," she said. "And I'm sorry if it's too much. It's just—"

Yoshino made a gesture with her hand.

"I know," she said. "You don't have to explain."

She looked up at the ceiling, wondering if she should ask.

"Back when you were young, you wanted to go to university, didn't you?" she asked. "I'm sorry you never got the chance."

Her mother let out a gust of breath.

"So you asked my parents about that, did you?" she said.

"I'm serious."

Yoshino made eye contact.

"Of course I did," the woman said, clasping her hands, looking down. "I don't mean to brag, but my grades were quite high in middle school. My teachers were dropping hints about Todai and Kyodai, though I don't know if that was realistic. They even got to me to test for high school, you know that? Got into the best school in the area, except I couldn't go. Scholarships weren't enough; I needed to also _make_ money. And I didn't even get that good a scholarship, for that matter."

Yoshino made a sympathetic grimace.

"You know," she said carefully. "It's not too late—"

Her mother shook her head decisively.

"What good would it do now?" she said, patting Yoshino on the head patronizingly. "I've made my choice."

Realizing what she had said, she leaned back in her seat.

"No pressure though," she added, pausing.

"Or that's what I want to say," she finished. "Except I can't really not pressure you. I'm not going to lie about that."

Yoshino smiled slightly.

"I'll try my best," she said, grabbing the woman's hand. "Even more than that, actually. You know that. And I'm good enough to succeed."

Her mother looked across at her and, though Yoshino couldn't see it, she was thinking to herself: _It seems like just yesterday I had to look down to see her face_.

"There are much easier ways, you know," she said. "Forgive me for saying this, but from a pure ambition standpoint, your parents have the right idea. Going to one of the elite prep schools would greatly oil your acceptance into the corporate circle, as would finding a suitable husband. Not the mention the various ownership issues you'd no longer have to navigate."

She looked down.

"I never wanted to say anything, but I had hoped you would choose an easier path. I didn't want you to struggle so much in life."

"You were worried I couldn't handle it," Yoshino said, not reproachfully.

"You gave me a lot to worry about," the woman said, voice airy. "The fits of rage, sealing yourself in, getting yourself suspended, and then that…incident with Uchida. Those were not the hallmarks of emotional stability. At the time, I didn't—I just didn't know how to approach you. I thought I was seeing the same movie play, all over again."

"Are you—" Yoshino began.

"Your father had the same problems," the woman said. "I told you. The Old Man told me. He didn't want to be a businessman. He wanted to be a scholar, a mathematician. Eventually, your father ran away. The Old Man regretted that his whole life."

"I won't do that," Yoshino said, not wanting to think about how tempting that exact route had been. "I won't take the easy way out. Nor will I do what my parents say just to make my life easier. Not at the price I would pay."

The woman nodded.

"I know. Why do you think I let Uchida stay with you?"

"You can't protect me forever," Yoshino said.

"That's a cliché psychological phrase and you know it," her mother said immediately. "But you're right."

The woman paused significantly, chewing over her next sentence.

"When you meet your parents," she said, finally. "You might find you have a surprising amount in common."

Yoshino gritted her teeth, surprised by the comment, though she shouldn't have been.

"Don't say that," she said, controlling herself. "Don't ever say that."

The woman, both her mother and not her mother, watched her.

"I won't lie," she said. "A part of me is glad you hate them. I probably couldn't stand the jealousy, otherwise. But please don't always respond like that. It's not healthy."

Yoshino nodded.

"I understand," she said. "And don't worry, I'll buy you a new lamp,"

"I already bought one," the woman dismissed. "Though I'll be glad to accept a gift. Anyway, all of that aside, you really should meet them. You know it's necessary."

"I know," Yoshino said.

She took a breath, thinking back to all that had happened, what she and Uchida had said to each other, the short handwritten note that she still had in her pocket.

"I think I'm finally ready."

* * *

One of the downsides of missing school to go on vacation, suspension-related or not, was having to trudge through the assignments you had missed.

It wasn't all that hard, but still, it took time.

Yoshino's computer was on, bathing her in faint radiation, but she was staying off the messaging service popular among her circle of friends, at least for now; she had a feeling she wouldn't be seeing Uchida there for a while, and she had no urge to field sympathy from the others at this point. Instead, the device was relegated to playing a particularly soothing piece by Brahms.

Well, okay, she wasn't even focusing all that hard. To be honest, she was alternating problem-solving and browsing electronics sites. She was deciding what kind of laptop she wanted—it was phenomenally silly at this point that she didn't own one, and it would have definitely come in handy during her recent "vacation". She really should have gotten one earlier.

Money was no object, of course, but there was a certain tradeoff between power and small size, and between power and battery life. It was not as if she did anything particularly strenuous with her computer, but it was a certain shameful pleasure of hers to be able to make Chiaki jealous on-demand, just by bringing up the topic.

Speaking of which, maybe she should just ask Chiaki.

There was no real need to do any of this. If she just asked her mother to buy whatever she thought appropriate, the woman would probably return in days with a custom model that had everything she needed. She was just procrastinating.

_I'm not in any mood for this. Not today._

The damn homework was boringly simple.

She sighed, spinning her chair around one hundred-eighty degrees so she could brood at the setting sun. It was brilliantly descending over the city, a view her panoramic windows and hilltop perch offered an exceptional view of. It cheered her up, a little.

Her phone buzzed at her.

"_This is my new number!_"the message said. "_Chiaki helped me set it up! Also, Kana is here._"

Then another buzz.

"Don't worry. I'm fine."

_That _put a real smile on her face, and she leaned over to tap out a response and store the number.

From the corner of her she spotted two figures strolling the grounds.

She had to raise her eyebrow at that.

Her mother had taught her how impolite it was to eavesdrop,.

But her mother had also taught her that politeness could be readily dispensed with, depending on the importance of the topic.

Not it was important or anything.

She took a moment to finish the message, then jumped briskly out of her chair and headed out her door.

Through the expedient of routing herself through the garden and behind the trees at the edge of the main area, she was able to approach them undetected, even if she got her shoes muddy in the fresh snowmelt.

There was nothing to hear, however, at least not initially. As Yoshino listened from behind a nearby tree, they chatted on completely mundane topics such as the weather, how they could convince the chef to go on a diet and exercise regimen, and things like that.

Rubbing herself for warmth despite her jacket, Yoshino began to regret her impetuous action.

_What's life without a little fun, I guess_.

"Well, I can't say I'm exactly surprised they pressured you," her mother said, voice a little muffled by distance.

Yoshino tilted her head in confusion.

_Hmm, did I miss something?_

"Honestly, I can't really blame them," Arisawa said. "You're nearly thirty, and they're naturally feeling anxious."

"Hasn't anyone ever told you it's rude to discuss a woman's age?" her mother responded, in the tone of one repeating a nostrum.

"Don't dodge the topic," Arisawa said.

From her perspective, Yoshino couldn't see their expressions, and it wasn't safe to try to watch; her face would be visible among the trees.

"Well to be honest," her mother said. "I do feel it a little, though I'd never admit it to them. Or to her."

"She'd be insulted if she heard that," Arisawa said.

None of them needed any context to know whom "her" referred to.

Yoshino was, in fact, a little insulted.

"Don't be like that, Arisawa," her mother said. "You know that's not what it is. I'm not feeling the urge for more children or my biological clock ticking or whatever other phrase you want to throw in here. It's just…"

The silence drew out, and Yoshino felt a little guilty for assuming the wrong thing.

"Well, how long do you expect to keep me waiting, then?" Arisawa asked. "It'd be one thing if I had some sort of definite promise, but I'm not even waiting for that. I'm just waiting for consideration."

Her mother sighed.

"We've been over this," she said. "You're a good person, and I've known you for a while, but I'm not sure you're the right person. Not without trying some things out first."

A brief pause.

"If it's any consolation, your age isn't a factor, not with me. And, as you may have noticed, my parents are now too desperate to care."

"Shaving the moustache seemed to be a good idea, as you said," Arisawa said. "But…"

He paused.

"Regardless, it's not something a man in love wants to hear," Arisawa continued, a trace bitter. "What more do you want? We're here walking alone near a sunset! Is it not enough? What exactly are you waiting for? Someone else?"

The woman sighed again.

"I don't know if love at first sight is still possible at my age, so I'm not waiting for something like that, if that's what you're worrying about. I don't think I'm even open to it. I—"

Another pause.

"She needs me. Now more than ever. I can't divide my time like this. You know that."

Yoshino looked down at her hands, a strange sickening sensation settling into her.

_My life, her life, trading one for the other—_

She clenched her eyes.

"I know," Arisawa said sadly. "I know. I'm just letting off frustration."

Yoshino shed her stealth abruptly, circling the tree trunk, treading over the broken branches deliberately loudly.

They stared at her, startled faces silhouetted by the descending sun, now nearly gone.

"How long have you been there?" her mother asked.

Yoshino stayed silent, and the three of them continued to stand stock-still, like a tableau.

"Why are you here?" Yoshino asked, finally. "Why do you love me? What have I ever done for you? I want to know! I'm not going to put off this time."

Her mother watched her for a moment, then turned away, hiding her expression. Arisawa looked at the two of them with wider eyes than Yoshino had ever seen on him.

"My standard answer is that I love you," the woman said. "And that doesn't need a reason. It's entirely true. But alright. You probably deserve a better answer at this point.

Her mother took a breath.

"I think I hated my life, back then," she said. "Working for household after household, scraping together some money to send home. My parents wanted me to find someone suitable to marry, someone who could support them, so that I could settle down, but what was that? A long senescence, I thought. It wasn't my dream."

She sighed.

"But then again, I didn't even know what my dream was. Not anymore. I had given up on education. I would never make it into the elites again, so what was the point?"

The woman turned to look at Yoshino, and the girl felt those eyes, hard as steel.

"Don't think you destroyed my life," the woman intoned. "I never had much of one to begin with."

She paused, thinking.

"It took me a long time to realize just why I accepted the Old Man's offer. It wasn't the money, though that helped, or that I'd fallen in love with you, though that became true. I had a new dream. I could finish what he started. You could do everything I wanted to do. You—"

She cut herself off, shaking her head ruefully.

"I'm going to cry so hard when you graduate high school," she said, half-joking. "It might be kind of funny. I realize it's a little strange to live vicariously like this, but that's what I've become. A bit of an obsessive robot."

Arisawa and Yoshino glanced at each other, wondering what to say.

"That's why I put so much pressure on you," the woman said. "Even though I say I don't. It's implied, isn't it?"

Yoshino nodded, once.

"I won't disappoint you," Yoshino asserted, putting on a determined expression. "I'll definitely fulfill your dream. But I—I think it might also be good to have some other dreams, perhaps."

It came out sounding much less eloquent than she had hoped.

"I'll take that under advisement," her mother said, sounding skeptical.

Far too late, Arisawa finally turned to leave and give them privacy, trying to perform his routine trick of disappearing into the mist.

"No, don't bother," the woman said, gesturing with her hand. "We're done here."

Yoshino could only agree.

* * *

To say that Yoshino was not look forward to this meeting would be quite the understatement.

Nonetheless, it had to be done.

Yoshino sat in a high back sofa chair, facing two similar ones on the other side of a small coffee table. To her right, her head servant stood impatiently.

Yoshino knew that the moment her parents arrived, the woman would stand at attention, body language a mixture of respect and defiance. At that moment, the two of them would appear the very image of master and servant, rather than mother and child.

For now though, it was unnecessary to put up any artificial pretenses.

Nakanawa shuffled over to the table, setting down a tray with three tea cups and two teapots of different styles, one modern with Earl Grey, the other porcelain with traditional green tea, an expensive Gyokuro.

They nodded at her, and the woman returned to standing by one of the doorways. Yoshino still had yet to break the news about her son's crush to her.

The far doorway opened, exactly on time, and Arisawa showed the newly arrived woman in with a gesture, then closed the door behind him and stood by the doorway.

Just a woman, and no one else.

The woman sat down in one of the two chairs, and Yoshino peered into her face, doing her best to avoid being caught doing so. She wasn't used to seeing members of her family, so the resemblance between what she saw here and what she saw in the mirror gave her a rather strange sensation.

"Would you prefer to speak in private?" the head maid said, managing to sneak threatening undertones into her otherwise pleasant voice. "I can dismiss the others, and I can also leave, if you prefer."

"It's unnecessary," Yoshino countermanded sharply, wondering why she would even offer.

"There won't be any need," the other woman agreed, in a cultured tone. "Nothing we say here need be private."

Again, the resemblance was eerie, the voice echoing Yoshino's own far too much.

Yoshino's mind abhorred the thought of that woman as her mother. Instead, her mind slithered and snuck around the topic, preferring to think of her as "That Woman".

That Woman sipped at her teacup, watching her as if she were merely a curiosity.

"So," Yoshino said, rather unpleasantly. "He couldn't even deign to visit. That seems typical."

The other woman tilted her head

"I thought I should give you the news myself," she said, levelly. "He's dead."

_What?_

Yoshino hoped she was concealing her slack-jawed expression well enough, though she knew better. In front of her, Arisawa coughed loudly, obviously concealing a reaction as well.

"They found him drowned in the Seine," the woman said, putting down her teacup. "The police investigation concluded it was an accident, and that he was drunk. Personally, I think it was suicide, though the alcohol may have helped."

"And you didn't _tell_ us?" Yoshino said, leaning forward, exasperated. "You could have at least mentioned it earlier. And a suicide, of all things!"

"Like I said," the woman replied. "I wanted to tell you myself. I was sparing you the shock. And let us drop the pretense: you're not really sad."

"Of course not," Yoshino growled, reclining back in her chair. "I have no intention of pretending I care about either of you. But it's not information that is standard to withhold."

"Well I told you, didn't I?" the woman said, picking her tea back up.

Yoshino looked at the woman, with her aloof, uncaring calmness, and wondered if they really shared half their genes.

"Do you not care at all?" the servant next to her said, unable anymore to restrain herself. "This is your daughter here. If you don't care, why are you here?"

The woman looked up at the servant.

"People sometimes tell me that I'm too unemotional," she said, voice detached. "Perhaps it's true. But I really did learn to love him, eventually, despite everything."

Yoshino watched her in stony silence.

"He had so many problems, that man," That Woman said, looking to the side. "He wasn't ready for a daughter, not at all. Neither of us were. We probably never would have been."

"Well, I'm here, whether you like it or not," Yoshino asserted icily. "But if you don't want me, then leave me alone!"

"That's all I really cared about," the woman continued, as if she hadn't even spoken. "Whether or not he was happy, that is. It's the only thing I ever learned to care about."

"And he could be happy, knowing that he was leaving her here?" the woman standing next to Yoshino demanded.

"No, not really," the other woman said, still strangely bland. "It was quite a conundrum. He couldn't really be happy either way. Believe it or not, we read those reports the Old Man sent us every year. We almost came back, that year when she wouldn't talk. In the end, he decided he wouldn't be any help. I agreed."

"What on earth is wrong with you?" Yoshino's servant said. "Of course it would have helped! How selfish are you, anyway?"

"It was rather similar to my childhood, actually," the woman said, again as if no one had even spoken. "Only I never quite changed. But I still got where I am now."

"I don't give a shit," Yoshino snarled, feeling her self-control slipping. "All I wanted, back then, was to see my parents. It's funny, I finally get my wish and I couldn't hate it more. What could possibly make you think I'd want to live with you? I wouldn't go if all my wealth depended on it. And I know for a fact it doesn't."

The other woman looked down and Yoshino finally detected an expression on her face, one of faint sadness.

"I didn't really think otherwise," she said. "But now that he is dead, you are all that I have left of him. You turned out to be like him, in many ways. I don't think you notice."

"Don't you ever compare me with either of you," Yoshino said chillingly. "Like I said, I don't care."

"I won't force you," the woman said. "But there is nothing else really left for me."

"That kind of sympathy play won't work," Yoshino said, in no mood to relinquish her unexpected advantage in the conversation. "You say you won't use force—well, you won't get it any other way. And I'll fight you tooth and nail if you try."

The woman looked up, and Yoshino realized that her expression was still nearly unchanged. It was almost robotic.

"Well, I would still recommend you switch schools and find a marriage partner," the woman said. "It's good advice, I think. I was being quite sincere. It's your father's old high school, after all."

"No," Yoshino said. "I have no urge to."

"I see," the woman said, almost without hesitation.

For the first time in the conversation, there a brief lull.

"You have a boy here you love, right?" That Woman asked, finally. "I can tell. That at least I understand."

"You may believe what you wish," Yoshino said, barely managing to conceal her astonishment at the unexpected insight.

The woman nodded to herself.

"I do hope it is worth it, but I will allow you the opportunity to choose."

_You came all this way, you turn my life upside-down, and in the end you don't even care that much?_ Yoshino thought, outraged.

But saying that wouldn't help her cause.

"Will there be anything else, then?" Yoshino said. "Or are we done wasting my time?"

"I do have one request," the woman said. "May I stay here, in one of the open rooms? Like I said, I don't really have anything else left for me. That way, I could at least have a place to stay."

"Why would I ever—no!" Yoshino spluttered. "Absolutely not! And if you try to stay, I'll have the servants throw you out, don't you think they won't!"

"It's alright," That Woman said, again strangely without affect. "I did not really think so."

Yoshino continued to glare at her, privately brooding over how strangely one-sided this conversation had been. It was unbelievable.

"I'm sorry for everything," the woman said, getting up abruptly, in what was surely the most monumentally useless apology ever given.

Turning briskly, she walked out the door, tailed by Arisawa.

Yoshino and her servant watched it close, unmoving.

"Well, that was interesting," Nakanawa said, striding over with wide steps, formality abandoned. "But it turned out much better than expected."

Yoshino stayed silent, thinking.

Her mother, the servant standing by her side, sighed.

"Another tragedy," she said, looking at the door where the woman had departed. "I wonder if there was a better way, in all of this."

Yoshino looked up at her, confused.

* * *

And that was really all there was to it. Thinking about it now, Yoshino realized she had overreacted immensely.

She couldn't really blamed, though. And without it, she never would have faced her demons. Yoshino just hoped that those demons, while not dead, were at least subdued for good.

* * *

Several months later, she found herself stepping out of her car in front of the Minami household, bag in hand.

She waved goodbye to Arisawa, then stared upward at the building.

She had arrived exactly on time.

This wasn't a celebration of anything particularly important. It was only a bit of a relaxation get-together, since they had finished the last of their entrance exams. Now there only remained to wait, and see.

They felt fairly confident though. No one could remember any particularly insoluble questions on the exam for the school they were all targeting, nor did anyone report struggling too much. With luck, it would all work out.

Yoshino let out a gust of breath.

Of course she had seen Uchida in the past few months—they still went to the same school, after all. But mid-school lunches had become basically the only time they could spend together, and it wasn't much. It had been a little lonely, in more ways than one.

Now, though, entrance exams were over, and the restrictions were off. She would be inside, waiting.

_Why_ _do I feel nervous?_ Yoshino thought.

"Hi there," a voice behind her said.

Yoshino almost jumped straight up, and as it was still spun around in a rather undignified manner.

"You—" she began.

"Surprised to see me?" Uchida said, wearing an annoyingly smug expression, emerging from the shade of a tree next to her. "I've been waiting for you."

Yoshino took a moment to gather herself.

"It's been a long time," Yoshino began.

"No it hasn't," Uchida pointed out. "We saw each other yesterday."

"You know what I mean," Yoshino said, annoyed.

Uchida smiled slightly, almost shyly, and something about it sent Yoshino's heart rate soaring.

"Feeling deprived, are you?" Uchida teased.

"No such thing," Yoshino said, turning away to hide her expression. "Anyway, let's go inside."

Uchida caught her by the hand.

"No," she said, catching Yoshino's surprised look. "They aren't expecting us."

"What do you mean?" Yoshino asked.

Smiling, Uchida held up two thin sheets of paper.

"We never did visit that Ferris wheel, you know."

Yoshino's eyes widened.

* * *

Now that it was really spring, amusement parks were almost in season and the one they visited was surprisingly well-packed.

Despite the tediousness of the multiple train and bus transfers it had taken to get there, Yoshino knew better than to even mention the possibility of calling for her chauffeur. Uchida wanted this furtive, so it would be.

Things were different now.

Previously, in the heat of constant contact, they had stayed rigidly within childhood rhythms and habits. Now, though, it was almost as if their relationship had received a reboot: casual conversations were occasionally awkward, paying for Uchida felt strange, and the two of them were hyperaware of the importance of not holding hands in public, despite what came automatically.

Strangely, Yoshino felt happy. They had lost their childhood innocence, but, truth be told, it had been missing for years. What had been there instead was almost a parody, one she had strained her utmost to prop up, until it had finally collapsed.

They had lost it, but in its place was…something else.

* * *

The central motor driving the Ferris wheel groaned, lifting them upward, so that the next two—and it was always two, even though each car could fit four—passengers could board.

"So how did Nakanawa-san take the news?" Uchida asked.

"News?" Yoshino repeated absently.

Uchida looked at her.

"Oh, right, no," Yoshino said. "I haven't told her yet."

"You haven't?" Uchida asked incredulously.

"Well," Yoshino said, cringing and looking away. "I feel bad just crushing a kid's dreams like that."

"You still feel bad for him," Uchida said, voice a little dangerous.

Yoshino made a noncommittal gesture.

"It's only crueler to let him delude himself," Uchida said.

"Yes, but is the best way to stop that really to tell _his mother_?" Yoshino pointed out.

Uchida stayed silent at that. Yoshino knew her point was good.

They were again jerked forward to make room for another two passengers.

"So how's your mother doing?" Uchida asked. "Your, uh, the biological one."

"Fine," Yoshino said bluntly. "Though she mostly just stays in her room nowadays. Honestly, that's how I prefer it."

It was not that Yoshino had _wanted_ to invite her back to stay. It was that two weeks later, she had passed out drunk in the middle of an intersection, causing the police to check her ID and trace next-of-kin.

Watching Arisawa help another servant carry the woman in, her head servant apologizing to the police officers, Yoshino had sighed and issued the orders to have a room made ready for permanent occupancy.

Later, her chief maid had slapped the woman, berating her, yelling at her to pull herself back together, that her life wasn't over. It had all been rather surreal.

It was then that Yoshino had searched her heart for the soul-searing anger that she had always had, and came away empty.

Somewhere over those two weeks—weeks spent in careful introspection—it had vanished, replaced only by a slight sense of pity. In the end, she realized, they were tragic and pathetic figures, just as her maid had said.

She didn't know if that realization were really any better than the anger. At least the anger had been solid and comforting.

The ride began moving, slow and steady. The wheel was at full capacity.

"You know," Yoshino said, her mind drifting to the topic. "My maid, she finally let Arisawa take her out."

"Ooo," Uchida vocalized, head tilted. "That's new. Took long enough. How are they doing?"

"Okay, I suppose," Yoshino shrugged. "Honestly, I don't think she loves him. She's just going through the motions."

Uchida thought about that, bothered by the answer.

"Well, it could easily still work," she said optimistically "Probably she'll grow into it."

"Maybe," Yoshino demurred, looking at the horizon from their elevated vantage point. "Honestly, I don't know if it matters if she does. Settling may be okay."

There was a long pause, during which Yoshino did nothing but take in the sights around her.

"That is the worst thing I have ever heard you say," Uchida commented, flatly.

"I don't know if she's even capable of love anymore," Yoshino explained, looking at Uchida. "For anyone but me, anyway. She's been a little obsessed, all these years. If she can't love anyone else, then why not settle?"

"That is horrible," Uchida repeated.

Yoshino sighed, as the ride began to carry them back down.

"I feel rather bad about it, but I think it's true," she said. "She's a bit stunted in that regard. It's not my fault, but I wish I could do something."

Uchida thought about that for a long time.

"Well, not everyone needs to marry," she said, finally.

"True enough," Yoshino agreed, leaning back.

"Except I need to, somehow," she reflected. "Maybe I should go to one of those European countries. Or maybe I can find a guy willing to sign the most onerous prenuptial agreement ever, and then divorce a day after the marriage. All possibilities. I need to speak to my lawyers, though."

"Love, huh…" Uchida said, tasting the flavor of the novel word.

Yoshino watched the girl's face, thinking of the same thing.

"I was actually serious when I was talking about adopting," Yoshino said. "It's been a secret dream of mine. That way, at least one generation of my family can have a normal childhood."

Uchida gave her a surprised glance, then turned so she could give her a calculating look, using one eye.

"If you're implying what I think you're implying," she said. "That'd hardly be normal. Think about it."

Yoshino shook her head ruefully.

"Nevermind," she said. "We should just look at the view. What are we doing sitting here talking about serious topics?"

And for another revolution of the wheel they did just that, watching the view in silence, though in all honesty Yoshino got something much better from where she lived. She didn't get to see the tops of roofs at such a close distance, though, she had to admit.

On their third trip up, Uchida looked at her from the corner of her eye.

"I know you're thinking about it," Uchida said, making a strange pouting expression. "So just go ahead and do it. You were the one who wanted to do this, anyway."

"I didn't think it through fully," Yoshino said, not denying the accusation. "I question the privacy of these cars. I feel like the people behind us can see us."

To accentuate the point, she glanced over her shoulder nervously.

"They won't be paying attention," Uchida said reasonably.

"Have you considered how terribly cliché this is?" Yoshino asked, as their car approached the top of the circle. "I mean, I'm embarrassed I ever suggested—"

"You think too much, have I ever told you that?" Uchida said, leaning over and grabbing her chin.

"But I can make it not your fault," she finished, voice dropping a full two octaves.

They kissed.

* * *

_Author's Note: I wish them happiness! They're so adorable…_

_That wraps this up. It's a bit open-ended, but not everything can be solved in one fell swoop._

_One more chapter for an Omake, and then it's on to a Haruka story._

_Also, parallel to that, I've taken on another project, which should hopefully be appearing rather soon. It's a radical departure from what else I have here; among other things, it's not Minami-ke. Shocking, I know._


	7. Omake: Who stole Fujioka?

_Yoshino's Country Villa, Mansion Grounds_

_9:30 AM October 31, 2009_

"Should we really be spying on them like this?" Uchida asked.

"Hush!" Yoshino ordered, waving her hand for silence.

The two first-year middle schoolers were perched on the edge a minor ridge near the main building, lying belly-down and relying on the topology to hide their presence. Yoshino was using a powerful pair of binoculars to peer into the distance, at her mother and Arisawa, taking a walk down one of the trails.

Uchida made an annoyed sound. She couldn't believe she had been woken up this early just so they could fulfill Yoshino's urges to stalk. And the grass they were lying in was itchy.

"I'm serious," she said. "It seems a little weird."

"Stop complaining," Yoshino said. "It's not like it matters."

Uchida opened her mouth to say more, but desisted, hearing approaching footsteps.

"Yoshino—" she began, shaking the girl's shoulder, but Yoshino was already sitting up and turning around, hiding the binoculars behind her back. It was still too late though—whoever it was must have certainly already spotted them.

Fortunately, the two new arrivals didn't care a whit what they had been doing.

"Yoshino—" Chiaki began shakily, and Yoshino could see immediately from her demeanor, clenched fists, and tone of voice that something was wrong. Even the girl's hair looked unkempt!

As it was, Haruka cut the girl off by grabbing her shoulder.

"Yoshino," she said. "We have a bit of a situation. Do you mind if we go inside?"

* * *

_North Sitting Room_

_9:40 AM_

"So Fujioka is missing?" Yoshino asked, sipping her tea contemplatively as the four of them reclined in chairs around a small glass table.

"Yes!" Chiaki asserted, leaning forward. "I've looked for him everywhere, and I can't find him. And it's not like it even makes sense for him to be anywhere else, but I looked anyway."

Even though the girl in front of her was already thirteen, she looked dangerously close to crying over the stuffed bear.

"I don't have to explain how important is, as silly as it seems," Haruka says.

"No, of course not," Yoshino said.

Besides how important they all knew the stuffed bear was, Chiaki wasn't the type to lose things, especially not of importance.

"Have you searched Kana's room?" Uchida asked, mere seconds before Yoshino was about to ask the same thing.

"Yeah, I know, obvious, right?" Chiaki said, sounding angry at the world. "That's what Haruka said too, but it can't be there. I know it can't."

"How do you know that?" Yoshino asked.

"I was with her the whole time, and then when I got back it was gone!" Chiaki said, seriously looking like she was about to _cry_. "T—the bag was empty and I looked all around and—"

Yoshino held out her hand.

"Start from the beginning," she said. "And please calm down. I can't understand you."

Sniffling, the girl nodded.

"The last time I saw it," Chiaki said, "was just after I finished preparing myself in the morning."It was in my bag for toothpaste and stuff, next to my backpack, on the counter with everyone else's, where you told us to put it. Kana was with me. I zipped up the bag and left it there, and we went to breakfast. I was with her the whole rest of the time. Then, when we got back to our rooms, I checked my bag in my room and it wasn't there."

Yoshino had told them to go ahead and leave their stuff on the counter, and that a maid would come by to carry it all back later. The past couple of days, they had felt obliged to take it back themselves, but Yoshino had kicked up a rather large fuss about it the night before, at dinner. She rather regretted that now.

"You sure it's the right bag?" Yoshino asked, knowing the answer already.

"Yes!" Chiaki said. "It's obvious it's my bag! It has all my stuff and everything."

_And of course, yours is the only one with the big picture of a cooking knife on the side, and 'Minami Chiaki' lovingly embroidered into the side._

"Obviously, there's no reason anyone would take it," Haruka said, looking at Yoshino. "But Fujioka was zipped up in the bag, and I don't know why anyone else would open it. Could it be some kind of mistake?"

"I stand by my servants," Yoshino said. "They would never open one of your bags. Still, I have no better explanation, and it doesn't hurt to ask…"

She pulled out her cell phone and pushed a button.

* * *

_9:55 AM_

"I agree," Yoshino's mother said, leaning on Yoshino's chair. "None of them would ever touch your bags.

"It is a matter of honor," Arisawa added, standing stiffly.

"Even so, I can call the maid…" the woman mused.

* * *

_10:10 AM_

"I swear I never opened a single one of those bags," the maid said, bowing and looking a little fearful at the attention, especially Chiaki's stark glare.

"It's alright, Eri-san," Yoshino said. "I'm not accusing you of anything. If you say you didn't, you didn't. But did you notice anything unusual? Something on the ground?"

"I wish I could say yes and explain everything," the woman said, glancing around, "but honestly I didn't. Everything was just as it should be."

"And you never left them unattended?" Yoshino asked.

"Well, of course I carried them over in multiple trips, since there were so many," the woman said. "I saw no reason to be worried about anything unusual. So yes, they were unattended multiple times."

"Not that it matters, since they were also unattended the entire time before you got there," Yoshino commented.

"Just so."

Yoshino lapsed into silence.

"You may go," Yoshino's mother said to the servant. "I'm sorry to have bothered you."

"I apologize if I'm being too bold," Eri said, glancing at Yoshino. "But I actually have embroidery as a hobby. If no one here minds, I'd love to spend some time with Minami-san and help her learn, since I think she does it as well."

Haruka smiled politely and said she'd love to, and if she was offended that someone was offering to teach _her_ something she was a master at, she hid it well.

"Maybe later, though," she said. "I want to spend some time with Chiaki right now."

Chiaki happened to be leaning back in her chair, looking strangely lifeless.

"No problem," the maid said, bowing and taking her leave.

"Well, this is pretty weird," Uchida commented. "What could have happened to it?"

"Someone could have taken it or done something to it at any point after Chiaki left, either on the counter or in her room," Yoshino said. "Though I can't possibly imagine why anyone would."

"It's alright," Haruka said. "I'm sure it will turn up eventually."

Chiaki shot her a betrayed look.

"I'll look for it," Yoshino said. "Why don't you take Chiaki for a nice walk through the grounds? It might help her take her mind off of it."

"I think I'll do that."

"I can canvass the servants to see if anyone saw it," Yoshino's mother suggested. "That might help. And I can have some go looking for it."

Yoshino nodded thoughtfully.

"Sorry, Haruka, before you leave, can I ask you if you saw anything that might be useful?"

Haruka shook her head, hair swirling slightly.

"Sorry, I spent the whole morning in the kitchen with your chef. He's pretty good, just like  
Kana said. Well, we've all tasted his food, so I don't know what my doubt was."

* * *

_10:20 AM_

"Well, this is interesting," Yoshino said. "Fujioka missing, and the prime suspect is cleared from suspicion."

"Might it really have been one of the servants, then?" Uchida asked, looking at Yoshino. "I know you don't want to accuse them of anything, but it's possible one of them dug through the bags and messed up putting things back."

"If one of my servants is digging through my guests' bags," Yoshino said, "then I have much bigger problems than Chiaki's unhappiness. And that'd be stupid. There are far more valuable things to steal just lying around this building."

Uchida nodded.

"So I'll leave my servants out of this for now," Yoshino said. "I can address it later if we really can't find it. For now, let's ask around a little."

"What do you mean?" Uchida asked, pigtails shifting as she tilted her head.

"Well, if it's not any of the servants, it might be one of the guests," Yoshino said. "So we can go around interviewing people and gathering clues."

"It's not really mystery material," Uchida commented.

"It might be fun anyway! Like in the stories!"

"I guess," Uchida said, shrugging. "But it's really a lot more dynamic when someone has been stabbed or something. And no one has a secretive past or anything like that."

"Well, we can't kill someone just to keep you entertained," Yoshino said.

* * *

_Main Dining Area_

_10:30 AM _

Look, Chiaki told you I was with her the whole time, right?" Kana asked, biting off part of a bun she had pilfered from the kitchen. She looked annoyed.

"Yes, but we were still wondering if you might have seen or noticed anything unusual as you two were leaving the bedroom area."

Kana appeared to think.

"No, I didn't see anything," she said, flicking one of her pigtails with her hand. "Any other question?"

"Actually," Yoshino said. "Do you guys usually spend mornings together? I don't recall you two being so close."

"Is there something wrong with wanting to play with my sister?" Kana said. "We don't really hate each other that much, you know."

"No, nothing," Yoshino said. "Just curious."

"Humph," Kana said, heading out the doorway.

* * *

_Main Kitchen_

_10:35 AM_

"Well, _she_ wasn't very cooperative," Uchida said as they pulled open the door.

"She's probably just annoyed everyone always accuses her first," Yoshino said.

"That's her own fault, obviously," Uchida said.

Yoshino didn't contest that.

"And what can I do for you, Yoshino-san?" the pudgy chef asked, stepping up and rubbing his hands, voice accented. He had made a special trip, along with many of the other servants, to join her here.

The kitchen assistants had turned to look as well.

"I'm sorry to bother you," Yoshino said. "But was Minami Haruka-san here this morning?"

"Ah, yes," the man said, turning to stir a pot of something. "She was here to watch me make breakfast, then came back afterward to see a little of the lunch preparation. She would have stayed, only her little sister showed up complaining about losing something. We had quite the time talking; she must be an excellent chef."

"I see," Yoshino said, thinking that, yes, Haruka had indeed stepped out of the kitchen for breakfast and later stepped back in, a fact she hadn't put much importance on at the time.

"You can't seriously be suspecting Haruka!" Uchida said incredulously.

Yoshino shrugged.

"Just due diligence," she said.

"Is something going on?" the chef asked.

"You'll hear about it later," Yoshino demurred, motioning Uchida to leave.

* * *

_North Rear Entrance (Hallway)_

_10:50 AM_

"Oh, wow, so Fujioka's missing, huh?"

The crop-haired girl stood back up, holding a pair of cleats in her hand. She shook her head slightly, to untangle the parts where her hair had stuck together in the front. She would need to cut it again soon.

"I wonder how she's taking it," Touma added. "She treasures that thing."

"Not too bad," Yoshino said, lying a little.

Touma looked around, a little confused about what to do with the shoes, until a maid appeared out of nowhere and grabbed it from her hands.

"Hmm," Touma mused. "Perhaps I should go talk to her."

"Well, first, do you mind if we ask you a few questions?"

Touma gave her a curious look.

"Okay, I guess. What do you want?"

"Just to be sure, you didn't take it because you were trying to surprise Chiaki or something, right? You weren't trying to attach a hat or something when the maid showed up at the wrong time? We're not overreacting to some sort of surprise gift?"

"What?" Touma asked. "No! Of course not. What are you talking about? A hat?"

"Nevermind," Yoshino said. "Just checking."

She cleared her throat dramatically, and Uchida obligingly handed her an open notebook and pen. It was empty, but Yoshino wanted it for the flair.

"Also, I heard you and Fujioka—the uh, human—had a bit of an incident two days ago?" she said.

Touma cringed.

"Why would you bring that up?" she asked. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"I hear you're a little desperate to get back in his good graces?" Yoshino continued, relentless.

"How do you even know any of this?" Touma asked, looking at her, eyes accusing.

"I have my ways," Yoshino said, making sure to look mysterious saying it.

"No seriously, how _do_ you know any of this?" Uchida asked.

Yoshino grunted.

"Hush," she said. "Anyway, so you're sure Fujioka didn't say anything bad about Chiaki's attachment to the bear? He didn't say anything about Kana wanting him to do something?"

"No!" Touma said, looking both angry and confused. "What the heck kind of questions are you asking?"

"Only two more," Yoshino said. "Where were you this morning after breakfast?"

She worded the question like that because she knew that Chiaki and Kana had been among the last two people up that morning, before only the true laggard, Uchida. By then, everyone else had already eaten breakfast and gone on to their activities. Dinner was the only meal Yoshino had insisted they eat together.

"I was playing soccer with Fujioka," Touma said. "For your information."

"Right," Yoshino said, writing the answer down even though she doubted she would ever look at it.

"I really hope this next question is normal," Touma said.

"Oh, it is," Yoshino said. "Do you know where Mako-chan is?"

"Oh," Touma said, actually looking surprised. "In her room, I think. But I would knock if I were you. Don't ask why."

"I see."

* * *

_Touma's Temporary Room _

_11:10 AM _

"Oh, so that's where you are, Mako-chan," Yoshino said.

Mako-chan turned to look, surprised.

She was chatting with one of the room-cleaning maids. She must have been following her around, explaining why she wasn't in her room.

That was one explanation.

"Yoshino," Mako-chan acknowledged, looking nervous. "What is it?"

"Excuse me," Yoshino said to the maid. "I'm going to drag her away from you."

"That's okay," the maid said. "Anyway, the Boss told me to look, but I haven't seen any stuffed animals yet."

"Keep up the good work," Yoshino said.

She grabbed the hand of the increasingly bothered looking Mako-chan, dragging her out of the room. Uchida grimaced for some reason.

Standing in the hallway, Mako-chan looked nervous and guilty, and even might have been shaking slightly. Then again, Mako-chan _always_ looked nervous and guilty in Yoshino's presence, so that probably didn't mean much.

"Mako-chan," Yoshino said pleasantly, cracking open her notebook.

"Y—yes?"

"What were you doing this morning after breakfast?"

"I—I—I was in the bathroom, changing, because Kana said—"

"That seems likely," Yoshino commented, focusing on her writing. "An alibi with nothing to back it up. What were you doing here then? You sure you didn't go outside and dig through Chiaki's bags?"

""Chiaki's bags? What? I—why—no—I would never do something like that. What are you—"

"Answer the question!"

"I—I came back to my room to leave—drop off my clothes, and I bumped into the maid cleaning my room, so I started talking with her, and—"

The girl had started to shake obviously, sweating profusely, face red. Yoshino was sure she was onto something.

"You're looking awfully guilty," she said, leaning forward and laying on the pressure. "What—"

"That's enough," Uchida said, voice stern, hand grasping Yoshino's shoulder.

"What?" Yoshino asked, confused. "What's enough?"

"Look," Uchida said, leaning forward and whispering in Yoshino's ear. "I can vouch for her. I was with her this morning. She had stomach cramps, so she locked herself in the bathroom. I saw her do it. I doubt she had the energy to be doing anything. Can't you tell when it's that time of month?"

"Time of—" Yoshino started to repeat absently.

_Ah!_

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said, bowing in Mako-chan's direction. "I didn't realize you were afflicted."

"A-afflicted?" the girl asked. "With—with wh—"

Uchida lurched forward and grabbed the girl by the shoulders, surprising her into silence.

"Look, Mako-chan is a very shy girl," Uchida said. "And obviously she doesn't want to talk about it. Mako-chan, Fujioka is missing. You didn't have anything to do with that, right?"

"Fujioka is missing? What? No, I had nothing to do with that! I didn't even know!"

Yoshino nodded. That was right. Mako-chan didn't have any logical motives anyway. There were probably much better candidates.

"I'm sorry for all of this," she said. "You didn't hear any weird sounds from your bedroom, did you?"

"No...no I didn't."

"Alright," Yoshino said, snapping her notebook shut. "I think we're done here."

She turned to leave, motioning for Uchida. Behind her, she heard Mako-chan let out a breath.

* * *

_Central Hallway_

_11:20 AM_

"Well this is disappointing," Yoshino said, as they strode down the hallway. "Those three were the most likely culprits."

"It doesn't have to be the most likely people," Uchida said. "Honestly, I don't even know why you were suspecting Mako-chan, but we still have time for one more person before lunch."

"That's true," Yoshino said.

She thought briefly, then cleared her throat.

"Uh, well," she said awkwardly, eyes sidecast. "I was reminded. Have there been any signs for you recently that, uh—"

"Yes," Uchida said, not in a friendly tone.

"Well, uh, do you mind discussing—"

"Oh, hi, Fujioka!" Uchida interrupted loudly.

Yoshino immediately dropped the topic and looked forward again.

"Oh, hi," the tall boy said, short hair dripping with sweat. "Good to see you two."

He wiped his head with a towel he had been carrying.

"So you've been playing soccer with Touma since breakfast, right?" Yoshino asked.

"Yeah, that's right," Fujioka said. "It was Kana's idea, though. I have to say, it was a pretty good idea on her part. You have a lot of space on this manor."

"I saw Touma a while earlier," Yoshino said, pulling the notebook out again. "What were you doing just now?"

Fujioka tilted his head at the strange questioning.

"Well, actually, I was talking with Kana. She seems a little annoyed about something, and she took it out on me, as always."

The boy sighed, then nodded to himself and made a determined face.

Yoshino felt a slight pang of sympathy. Though actually, both Kana and Fujioka had seemed off the past couple of days. Maybe that was a clue.

"Has Kana said anything about Chiaki's stuffed bear recently?" Yoshino asked.

"Fujioka?" Fujioka asked. "No. Not recently."

"And what do you think about Chiaki liking it so much?"

Fujioka rubbed his head, looking even more confused at the direction this conversation was taking.

"Uh, well, she's a bit old to be playing around with so much," he said. "But there's nothing too wrong with it. Besides, it was my gift, so I can even feel a little proud."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah. It was for Christmas."

Yoshino felt a pet theory get utterly deflated. She closed the notebook. She hadn't even written anything this time. Maybe it wasn't worth it.

"Anyway," Fujioka said, "if you don't mind. I'll be taking a shower."

"Oh!" Mako-chan's voice rang out behind them. "So you found him!"

Fujioka gave the girl a confused look.

"Fujioka the bear, Mako-chan," Uchida sighed. "Chiaki's bear."

"Oh," Mako-chan said.

Then, a moment later:

"I still had nothing to do with it."

"Let's just go get lunch," Yoshino said, rubbing her forehead.

* * *

_Hallway outside Main Dining Area_

_12:30 PM_

"Riko! Keiko!" Uchida yelled.

The two girls in question turned to face them, waiting for them to catch up.

"Oh, you two," Riko said, flicking her hair. "Good to see you. What's up?"

"This must be about the stuffed bear business," Keiko said.

She faced Yoshino.

"I was sorry to hear about that. I hope you find it soon."

"On that note," Yoshino said. "Has Kana done anything particularly aggravating to either of you recently?"

_It's far-fetched_, Yoshino has said to Uchida earlier, _but it's possible one of them was trying to get Kana into trouble, and had the poor luck of Kana having a perfect alibi._

Uchida had shaken her head.

_Her friends don't strike me as the type to do something as petty and weird as that just because they're mad, _she had said. _However, I guess Riko-chan might be getting desperate. You know what I'm saying._

_Hmm. That could make sense._

"Not recently, no," Keiko said, pushing up her glasses. "Though she does go overboard sometimes. I'm not sure where you're going with this."

"Not to me," Riko said simply.

Yoshino nodded, then turned aside, elaborately giving Uchida the stage.

"Do you know if Fujioka has gotten anywhere with Kana recently, Riko-chan?" Uchida asked.

Keiko immediately twisted her head to look at Riko, who was masking a pained gesture, eye twitching, as if something inside her had snapped.

"Why—why would you ask that?" she asked, obviously trying to keep her expression serene. "Has something happened?"

"No, nothing I heard about," Uchida said, waving her hands. "We were just curious, since, uh Fujioka and Kana have been acting weird re—"

She stopped mid-sentence, watching Riko's apoplectic reaction.

_Well, this was a mistake_, Yoshino thought. _Still, I don't think this reaction is consistent with her having planned something devious. She would be acting calm and aloof. Something like that._

"—that is to say, we were worried they might have gotten in a fight!" Uchida finished, salvaging the conversation with remarkable smoothness. "Yeah, they looked angry at each other."

It was an outright lie, but Riko seemed to buy it. Instantly, her face flooded with relief.

"Oh, is that all?" she said, wiping her forehead with a handkerchief. "No, no I didn't know of anything. But if that's really so, maybe I should go talk to Fujioka and smooth things over."

Take the opportunity to win him over, more like.

Riko started to move off.

Yoshino shifted over and began rather obviously elbowing Keiko. Catching the girl's eye, she made a gesture with her head at Riko. Keiko caught the message.

"I'm not sure that's a great idea, Riko," Keiko said. "If you show up, he'll probably be in a bad mood, and you'll just remind him of Kana. Best to wait and see what happens. Maybe talk to him later."

Riko stopped mid-step.

"Oh, that's—that's right. You're right, Keiko. I don't know what I was thinking."

Again, she wiped her forehead with a handkerchief.

_Good thing she's so timid,_ Yoshino thought.

"Anyway, Keiko," Yoshino said. "I was wondering if you two might have seen anything in connection with Chiaki's bear. Where were you this morning?"

"Oh, we were out, uh—"

Looking chagrined, Keiko glanced over at Riko, who had lapsed into fantasy, hugging herself, and at Uchida, who was trying to snap her out of it.

"Well, we were over by the soccer field, watching Fujioka and Touma-kun play," Keiko said. "Riko heard about it from Kana, and I couldn't stop her. I'm sure you understood."

Yoshino sighed.

"Yeah, I do."

* * *

_Exterior Path, near large Gazebo_

_1:00 PM_

"_Natsuki-san_?" Uchida asked incredulously. "Now you're just pushing it."

"Look, there's only three people left," Yoshino said. "I have to try. Stay here, okay?"

Uchida looked confused as to why she was being left behind, but Yoshino didn't want her here for this one.

They found Natsuki seated under the gazebo, watching Touma and Chiaki argue with each other from a distance. He wore an unreadable expression.

"Good afternoon, Minami-san," Yoshino said politely, sitting down on the chair across from him.

Blinking as if being woken from deep thought, he turned to look at her.

"Good afternoon," Natsuki said. "Uh, Yoshino-san. And thanks again for uh, for having us."

Yoshino could tell he was stretching his limits to try to be polite to his host. He wasn't the kind of person to which social graces came naturally.

"No problem," she said, not really caring.

He watched her.

"They're pretty close, aren't they?" Yoshino said, gesturing with her head.

Natsuki's eyes widened slightly, almost imperceptibly, and she knew she was on to something.

"Yes," he said, voice subtly less flat.

"It must be nice to have a friend like that," Yoshino said, shifting positions to look at the girls in question. "I'm sure you agree."

She was careful to avoid saying that could be construed as implying that any of Natsuki's beliefs were actually true.

"I guess," Natsuki said, expression guarded. "But it is a bit unusual."

"Perhaps," Yoshino said, keeping her expression blank. "But it would be strange to be overly concerned just because of a little unusualness."

"Are you trying to say something?" Natsuki asked, straight to the point as always.

Yoshino sighed. Well, she didn't really think Natsuki was one for subtle conversations.

She turned to face him.

"I'm just saying that, hypothetically, someone who is overly concerned might do some rash things, some things that aren't really a good idea, such as taking someone's prized possession and placing it in someone else's room."

Natsuki blinked at her in confusion, then looked downward, processing the comment.

"Are you trying to tell me that Haruka took something from Touma?" he asked, hand on chin. "That's definitely a step too far. But wait, does that mean she thinks the same thing? It has to!"

He looked at her, and his eyes widened still further.

"And does that mean _you_ also—"

Okay, this was starting to get off-track.

"No, nothing like that," Yoshino interrupted, waving her hands. "On a different topic, I take it you spent the whole morning watching Touma?"

Natsuki blinked at the rapid change in subject.

"Yes, yes I did," Natsuki said, starting to look a little frustrated. "I was with, uh, those two friends of Kana-san's. Look, if you want to tell me something, just say—"

"No, I don't want to tell you anything!" Yoshino insisted. "Just don't worry too much about Touma, okay?"

"I—" Natsuki began.

"Anyway, it was nice to meet Touma's brother!" Yoshino said cheerily, and departed before he had any chance to argue.

"So nothing, huh?" Uchida asked when Yoshino met her again.

"Nothing," Yoshino said resignedly. "And now there's only two people left."

She gestured over at a row of trees, where the two people in question were sitting on a bench. They walked over.

"Oh, Yoshino-san, Uchida-san," the twenty-something-year-old Takeru greeted, turning to face her.

"Yoshino! Uchida!" Kumada-sensei said. "What a pleasure!"

Yoshino and Uchida returned the greetings amiably, remaining standing.

"We were wondering," Yoshino began. "Have you two had anything to worry about recently with regards to Chiaki?"

Their former school nurse and the Minami sisters' cousin gave each other a look.

"No, I don't think so," Takeru said.

"Her health was fine, the last time I checked," Kumada said. "Although she is growing a little slowly. Why, is something wrong?"

"No, nothing," Yoshino said. "So no concerns about, perhaps, keeping her stuffed bear a few years too long?"

"What stuffed bear?" Kumada asked.

"It's a toy she plays with," Takeru explained. "You wouldn't have seen it."

He scratched the back of his head.

"Well, I suppose," Takeru said. "But I don't think much of it. It's embarrassing, but frankly, I rely on Haruka. I'm sure she knows what she's doing. Certainly more than I do."

"Fair enough," Yoshino agreed, feeling her last, absurdly unlikely theory, fall apart. "And what were the two of you doing after breakfast?"

Yoshino hadn't meant to phrase an embarrassing question, but the two of them immediately gave each other a look, then looked at Yoshino sharply.

"Well honestly, Yoshino," Kumada said. "That's a little private. What's with all these weird questions, anyway?"

Yoshino didn't have to lie, not really, but figured it would be a good practice to keep the "suspects" in the dark to see if they accidentally revealed something.

"Someone dropped a rather confidential item," Yoshino said, lying through her teeth. "And a servant picked it up. We can't figure out whose it is. We don't want to embarrass anyone by talking about what it is, so I'm checking to see who was in the right area."

_That_ certainly set them off. Kumada and Takeru gave each other a panicked look, and they started whispering to each.

_Well, that's…not what I expected,_ Yoshino though.

"We were near your lily ponds," Takeru said. "At Kana's suggestion. They're excellent, by the way. But is that…"

"No, it wasn't found there," Yoshino said, wondering just what was going on.

They looked immensely relieved.

Yoshino turned to leave, but Uchida surprised her by tugging on her sleeve.

"Actually, do you mind if I stay here and talk with Kumada-sensei for a while?" Uchida asked.

"Uh, no," Yoshino said, confused. "Go ahead."

"Privately," Uchida said.

Yoshino blinked.

"No problem. I guess I'll be standing over there then."

She walked over to a different grove of trees and leaned on one, thinking.

She was out of candidates. Everyone who could possibly have taken the bear was out of the area at the time, with at least one other person to back their alibi.

Except Mako-chan. Even though Uchida had provided a reasonable story to cover her, she was the only reasonable candidate. She had been in the area, and the whole thing with the stomach cramping could have just been an elaborate story.

But why hang around in the area afterward, then? And why take the trouble to concoct a story that made sure both Touma and Uchida would know you were in the area of the crime?

And the girl had completely the wrong personality for this and, despite all the haranguing that Yoshino had done, Yoshino couldn't actually think of a motive.

She chewed on the problem, standing there. But it seemed insoluble. The only options left were to accuse Mako-chan, accuse her servants, or call Chiaki a liar. None of those seemed palatable.

"Bothered?" Uchida asked, walking up next to her.

"Yes," Yoshino said. "We have accomplished nothing with all this questioning."

Uchida shrugged.

"You can't win them all. Look, maybe a servant has found it by now. Maybe something weird just happened."

"Nobody except Mako-chan was in the area," Yoshino said, vocalizing her thoughts. "And I don't think it's her. Technically, I should go ask Riko and Keiko if Natsuki was there with them, but I have no doubt he was. So now what? Chiaki is lying? My servants are attempted thieves?"

"Maybe people were working together," Uchida said. "I mean, maybe, for example, Kumada and Takeru. They're each other's alibis, after all."

"They're really good actors, then," Yoshino said. "Does it really seem possible?"

Uchida shook her head no.

Yoshino sighed.

"Let's review one more time," Yoshino said. "Haruka was with the cook. Fujioka and Touma played a game of soccer outside, and of course Natsuki stalked Touma out there. Riko and Keiko went because Riko has a crush on Fujioka. Takeru…."

"What?" Uchida asked. "Takeru what?"

"Something is off," Yoshino said. "I can't quite place it."

"What are you thinking?" Uchida asked.

Yoshino waved her off, and Uchida grunted in annoyance.

"Oh, Yoshino," said a voice from behind them.

They turned, and saw Haruka walking up.

"Did you manage to find it?" Haruka asked.

Yoshino shook her head sadly.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"It's okay," Haruka said munificently, smiling. "I'm sure it'll turn up. Chiaki will be disappointed, though."

Yoshino shook her head to show her unhappiness, and went back to thinking about the problem. Yes, that was suspiciously unlikely, but what was the key? And how did the bear get moved? She was missing—

"How did the embroidery thing go?" Uchida asked.

"Not bad," Haruka said. "But, confidentially, Yoshino, your servant is a little too proud of her own skills. She thought I was terrible. I have no idea how she could think that, when she can't even stitch as well as I did on those bags!"

"Ah!" Yoshino said, eyes blinking rapidly.

"Is something wrong?" Haruka asked.

"No," Yoshino said decisively, looking her in the eye. "Nothing is wrong. I need to talk to Chiaki."

They followed her as she stamped off in Chiaki's direction, looking at each other.

"Chiaki," Yoshino said, ignoring the fact that she and Touma were wrestling each other on the grass. They froze in place.

"What is it?" Chiaki asked, perhaps a little bothered by Touma's palm pressing into her face.

"Where did you get that bag you put Fujioka in? Did you buy it?"

Chiaki thought for a moment, looking down.

"It was a gift," she said. "From Kana."

Yoshino smiled.

"Haruka," she said. "Get Kana and meet me in the entertainment area at two twenty. I'm going to go check a few things."

* * *

_Entertainment Area_

_2:30 PM_

"In the end," Yoshino said. "It wasn't that long a deductive chain. It just required a flash of insight."

They were seated in a circle on plush chairs around a giant TV, Yoshino the only one standing. Present were Uchida, Haruka, Chiaki, Kana—who looked annoyed to be there—, and Eri, the maid.

"The essential point was to realize that _everyone_ had an alibi," Yoshino said "And a fairly solid one at that, except Mako-chan."

"I'll get back to Mako-chan later, but that was really too big a coincidence. In the normal course of things, you'd expect at least _some_ people to have gone back to their bedrooms after breakfast, or to have at least wandered about the area. Instead, _every last person_ was somewhere else."

"Except Mako-chan," Kana pointed out.

"Yes," Yoshino said. "Except Mako-chan, who was in the bathroom with stomach cramps after breakfast, and only headed back to her bedroom a while later, by which time you and Chiaki were already eating breakfast. I know that because Mako-chan said the maid was already cleaning her room by then, and I looked up the cleaning schedule."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Kana asked. "It doesn't absolve her."

"No it doesn't," she said. "But it seems a little ridiculous to be accusing Mako-chan. It doesn't make any sense, motive-wise. And there is a much better explanation.

Yoshino smiled a terrible smile.

"So, neglecting my servants, everyone except Mako-chan was out of the area after your breakfast," Yoshino said. "And before that, everyone _including_ Mako-chan was out of the area, which is even _more _suspicious."

She thought she saw Kana shift nervously, just a little.

Yoshino put her hand on her chin, posing seriously. She was enjoying this.

"Isn't it curious, then, how Haruka was watching the cook, because you suggested it?" Yoshino said. "And how Fujioka and Touma were playing soccer, because you suggested it? And Riko and Keiko were watching them, because you mentioned it to Riko? And Takeru and Kumada were touring the lily ponds, because you suggested it was a good idea? Of course, Natsuki didn't need any prodding, not with Touma already out there, as I'm sure you realized. Even Mako-chan mentioned you being involved somehow."

Everyone else present turned to look at Kana, who maintained an impressively unflustered demeanor.

"Your theory is great, but it's flawed," Kana said flippantly. "What does it matter if everyone was gone before we ate breakfast? Chiaki saw her bear in the bag just before we left, and then I was with her the whole rest of the time. It can't be me. I don't want to accuse Mako-chan, but even that is more reasonable."

Kana was acting casual, but it seemed to Yoshino that Kana was speaking a lot more carefully than she usually did. That, too, was a sign.

"Really?" Yoshino asked, eyes flashing. "Well, I'll be honest. I could have solved this hours earlier had I just thought to ask a simple question. But I didn't think to, because it seemed too obvious a point to be quibbled with."

She gestured with her hand.

"Eri-san," she said. "Could you describe the bag you took to Kana's room this morning?"

The maid looked at her, surprised at being addressed, then thought for a moment.

"Well, to be honest," the woman said. "I didn't look too carefully, but I think it was the one with a cooking knife decal on the front. I remember thinking it was cute—"

"You mixed up the bags?" Chiaki said accusingly. "That was it the whole time?"

"Calm down, Chiaki," Yoshino said. "Let her finish. Please, Eri-san, describe the embroidery on Kana's bag, if you will."

Kana started to sweat—or maybe that was just Yoshino's imagination.

The maid looked embarrassed and hesitant.

"You can be honest," Yoshino said, clasping her hands. "Trust me. By the end of this, it won't insult Haruka at all."

"Well, to be frank," Eri said, glancing warily at Haruka. "It was terrible. I could barely make out the symbols. But I'm always glad to see someone new picking up the hobby, so I wanted to give Haruka-san a little help."

Haruka frowned.

"Terrible?" she repeated.

"In fact, Haruka is excellent at what she does," Yoshino said. "But I don't blame you for thinking otherwise. The bag did say 'Minami Kana' though?"

"Yes, definitely," the maid said.

Yoshino could see the look on everyone's faces as the response registered. Initially confused, one by one, including Chiaki, their faces resolved into narrow, suspicious looks, which they directed straight at Kana.

"That's very interesting," Yoshino said, for the maid's benefit. "Given that the only bag with a knife on the side should be embroidered 'Minami Chiaki'. Well, the only bag that we know about."

Kana looked trapped now, and began glancing at the door as if she wanted to leave, but Haruka's glare kept the girl pinned down.

"Chiaki," Yoshino addressed. "Let's be honest. You're not the most careful of girls. If you saw a bag that looked exactly like your own, in the exact spot you left it, would you pause to check the name on the backside before zipping it up? Or look too carefully at the contents?"

"No," Chiaki spat, giving Kana a harsh look. "And I don't think anyone being 'careful' would have, either."

"But that still doesn't make sense," Haruka said. "When would Kana ever get the time to tear off my embroidery and add her own? Not that I don't believe you. I spent hours on that bag! Someone's not getting dessert for a while."

Kana shrank from Haruka's dark look.

Yoshino shook her head.

"She didn't have to. This whole thing becomes easy if there are _two _bags. And the original bag was a gift from Kana, wasn't it?"

Yoshino smiled broadly, reveling in the moment.

"So this morning, as Chiaki is brushing her teeth, Kana casually strolls by the bags and switches Chiaki's bag with her facsimile, carefully stocked with just enough of Kana's own toiletries so as to look passable. She switches Fujioka into the fake bag, and walks Chiaki's own bag to Chiaki's room herself, knowing that Chiaki won't be coming back, not after the fuss I made about it."

"When Chiaki is done, she walks out, sees Fujioka in what she thinks is her bag, drops her toothbrush and such off, and zips it up. Afterward, when Eri-san drops by, she does Kana's work for her, taking the bag with Fujioka into Kana's room. She sees Chiaki's backpack with her hair brushes and assumes that's Chiaki's only bag, and takes it back too. After all, how would she know? Today was the first day you didn't take it back yourselves."

"That's right!" Chiaki said, looking at Kana. "On the way back, you rushed ahead of me to get to your room!"

Yoshino nodded.

"And Kana knew that Chiaki would be too distraught to notice a missing toothbrush and toothpaste, which she could easily sneak back into the room in the confusion."

"By the time the maid grabs the bags, there is no longer any need for everyone to be out of the area, but it wouldn't make sense for Kana to just go around recalling everyone, so the clue was still there, except that Mako-chan came back after breakfast, which, as you see, no longer has any relevance."

"That would take so much planning, though!" Uchida said, playing devil's advocate. "She had to have gotten the gift solely with something like this in mind, then spent the time to embroider it herself, then planned out how to trick everyone out of the area. That might have been months ago! How could she even foresee the names would become important?"

"Yeah, that's right! It's ridiculous." Kana said, finally breaking her silence. She didn't look confident anymore, however; in fact, she looked more nervous than Yoshino had ever seen her.

Yoshino shrugged.

"Frankly, I'm not sure. This trip was only planned for a short while. However, I did tell you all that it would be best to label your bags, even if I personally suggested paper tags. Kana probably remembered where she bought the original, and went shopping. Then, she probably watched Haruka while Haruka was doing the embroidery. No doubt, she would have preferred Haruka simply use tags."

"She played us all quite well," Yoshino said. "Exploiting Touma and Fujioka's desire to reconcile to get them out of the way. Exploiting Riko to get her and Keiko out of the way—even though Kana supposedly doesn't know _anything about that_. I could go on, but what really annoys me is that she got me too. She predicted that I would be too stubborn to let my guests carry their own bags back all four days, especially not after I saw her complain about it to Haruka, which she just _happened to do_ in my presence. And I thought she was just being lazy."

She gave Kana a rather fatal look.

"Of course, I could be wrong," Yoshino demurred, with false modesty. "But that's easily checked. Kana, would you consent to a search of your rooms? Really, we should have just done that from the start."

At that, everyone present, including the maid, turned to watch Kana, some angrily, others merely with curiosity.

Kana, for her part, was gritting her teeth, looking around like a trapped fox, still trying to think of a way out.

Finally she gave up.

"Alright, fine!" she said defiantly, raising her hand. "It's in my clothes bag, under my pants! And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling—"

With an inchoate yell, Chiaki dove onto Kana, inflicting torrid levels of her trademark violence. Haruka stood up, and for a moment, Yoshino thought Haruka would stop it, but instead she merely said:

"Have fun, Chiaki. Don't hurt her too much, okay?"

Then she turned to Yoshino.

"That was pretty amazing, actually," Haruka said. "Is there any way we can thank you?"

"Nah, I don't need anything," Yoshino said casually. "It was fun playing Holmes! Though Watson here could have been a little more helpful, I must say."

"Hey!" Uchida said, leaning forward. "That's unfair!"

Yoshino laughed.

_Yoshino's Bedroom_

_11:30 PM_

That night, they lay awake a bit longer than usual.

"That was actually pretty impressive," Uchida said, looking over from the pillow next to her.

"I'm glad I still have the ability to impress you after all these years," Yoshino said, looking back.

Uchida snorted.

"Stop making us sound married," she said, looking up. "The others have strange enough ideas about us as it is."

Nominally, Uchida had her own room, for appearance's sake. Fortunately, no one seemed to have noticed the fact that Uchida never quite left Yoshino's room during the nights there.

Yoshino was still feeling a little high from her accomplishment of the day, and, thus, was a little restless.

"So what exactly were you talking with Kumada-sensei about?" she asked, leaning forward to get into Uchida's face.

"None of your business," Uchida said, looking away.

"Oh, a secret, huh?" Yoshino said, grabbing Uchida's stomach with a spare hand and pinching. Uchida yelped, jerking into a sitting position.

"You bastard!" she protested. "Why do you always do that?"

Yoshino looked up at the other girl, framed by the autumn moonlight in Yoshino's rather palatial childhood room. There were memories here.

And at the moment, one disheveled looking girl, hair muddled, nightshirt enticingly slipping off one shoulder, having caught on Yoshino's hand on Uchida's way up. The girl looked down at her with that ever-so-cute annoyed face.

Yoshino sat up, breathing a little more heavily—and realized her mistake. The view up there was even better.

She gritted her teeth. No. Not today. Not here. Not here, of all—

"Yuka," she began.

"Yes?" Uchida asked, and her innocence hurt to look at.

"We'll be going home tomorrow."

"Yeah, of course," Uchida said.

_Damn it, fix your shirt!_ Yoshino thought, but it would have been too late anyway.

She reached backwards, pulling open a drawer, and grabbed the bottle that lay therein.

_Why did I even bring it? _She lamented. _It was only a four day trip! What was I thinking?_

No, that was a lie. She knew exactly what she had been thinking. Despite all her hypocritical protests, all her supposed refusal to pollute her memories of this place, a part of her had thought: _Wouldn't it be fun to choose somewhere different, this time?_

It was a part of her she couldn't refuse. It had been months since the last time, after all, and she had held out, somehow, all summer.

She swallowed, and held the bottle of wine up to the light. She hoped dearly that the alcohol would drown the guilt, at least for tonight.

"I figured we could try something," she said.

Uchida's eyes widened.


End file.
